Playing Matchmaker
by Vifien
Summary: "It's just a date. I'll ask her out, go somewhere nice with her and then live till the next day to tell about it. I'll show all of you cowards that this is in fact possible" A little twist to 'Tori fixes Beck and Jade'. A Jori story.
1. The cowards

**AN:** This story starts in the middle of 'Tori fixes Beck and Jade'. It's just a little idea I got while re-watching that episode.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own Victorious or any of those characters obviously.

„No, no, no, no..."

„But..."

„NO!"

„But..."

Andre silenced her with a gesture, but it lasted only a few second before they began arguing again.

"Come on, if you take Jade on a date it'll show other guys that she can be dated. And then more guys will start asking her out and Beck won't feel so bad about going out with Meredith." Tori repeated her whole plan with the same enthusiasm as before. She was a really stubborn person, especially when it came to helping her friends. She'd already decided that she would help Beck and there was nothing Andre could say to change her mind. Of course it didn't mean he didn't try.

"How about I ask out Meredith and Beck just buys himself a hamster or something." He shrugged indifferently.

At this point Tori realized she had to change her approach.

"Do you remember last year? You had a crush on Jade. You really liked her." She tried. It was a dangerous ploy, but at the same time her last chance. She wasn't thrilled to live through that particular part of their life again, but if it could possibly help Beck, she was more than ready to deal with Andre's crazy emotions.

"And when I was three I really liked my dinosaur underpants. Things change." He retorted ironically.

He had all rights to be sarcastic now. After all she was the one that had done everything possible to get Jade out of his head and show him that she was the worst person on the face of this planet to have a crush on. Funny that now she was trying to do exactly opposite.

"But Jade could be so much fun." She said hopefully, but before Andre was even able to replay loud shout startled them both.

Without another word they watched as Jade made two guys drop their equipment and run away in pure panic. Every person at the Asphalt Cafe flinched nervously, including Tori.

"This is hopeless." She concluded finally, earning a knowing gaze from Andre.

"Listen." He put down his drink with a little more serious expression. "Maybe you should not get involved? Even if you find someone suicidal enough to ask her out, she will likely just cut him or something. Do you really want to be responsible for a murder? And don't forget that she will go after you too."

"I know..." She sighed deeply and leaned more against their table. "I just want them to be happy. Both of them. Beck can't spend rest of his life being scared of Jade watching his every step and getting jealous. And... She also deserves a new chance. I'm sure there is something in her worth getting to know"

Once again, horrific shout interrupted her words.

"Sinjin! Fix this monitor before I make a necklace out of your ear!" Jade looked like she was about to throw her microphone at the creepy boy. Her whole figure just radiated pure anger and hatred.

"Whatever it is, it's definitely well hidden" Andre rolled his eyes, what only made Tori more irritated with the whole situation.

"You know what? The true problem here is that you guys are too big cowards." She stated agitated.

"Cowards? Great! So maybe you could find a girl, who is not afraid of dating her?" He crossed his arms with a challenge in his eyes.

"A girl?"

Had she just heard it right? Did this mean what she thought? That would be quite a news.

"Yeah! Beck said something once about her being bisexual. I'm not absolutely sure, but you can try it. If you think we guys are such chickens..." He rolled his eyes at her again, but she totally missed it, her mind wondering elsewhere.

She'd never considered something like that nor imagined Jade being with girl. Actually she'd kind of never imagined her with anyone else than Beck. But that had to change now and this news gave Tori a lot of new options.

"Maybe I could talk Cat into this? She did a lot of stupid things that made Jade furious in the past and she survived her wrath every time. Maybe she won't end up with a scissors in her belly?" Redhead was basically the first one that came to her mind. She wasn't that hard to persuade into something. Positively not as stubborn as Andre.

"But it's Cat. She probably won't be murdered, but Jade would never take her seriously. She'll ignore everything Cat would say and this not gonna change your position at all." Her best friend finally put his arms down looking slightly more alerted and curious. He realized she was truly thinking his words over.

"So..." She murmured thoughtfully.

Eventually there wasn't so many new options. She didn't even know which girls would be potentially interested in other girls not to mention Jade. Tori wasn't enough of a friend with any of them to convince anyone to give it a try. Suddenly a thought occurred to her.

"I will do this" before she could even consider what she's about to say it just slipped spontaneously.

"What?!" Andre's eyes grew twice a size, while his jaw hung open.

"I will ask her out" she repeated before her sudden courage could leave her. "She won't be... too cruel with rejecting me. We're friends." Andre threw her a doubting glance. "Kind of..." she added a little less confident.

"Jade hates your guts." he replied firmly. "Do you forget how she try to stole your part in "Steamboat Suzy"? How she sabotaged your prom? Spilled her coffee on you? Tried to cut your hair while you were sleeping? I'm quite sure you're at the top of her 'To kill' list"

"Yes, she can be... hard to approach, but she was actually a lot nicer to me these last few months." Tori'd never put too much thought into this, but now she truly realized that Jade indeed was nicer to her. Maybe there finally was a chance for them to work this all out. "She let me take her place at the Platinum Music Awards.. You know how big sacrifice it was for someone like her."

"Tori, just two days ago she was trying to push you down the stairs because you didn't borrow her your math notes."

"But she didn't kill me when she found out I went out with Beck on our opposite date. Well, she even was on a date with me, thanks to Sikowitz, and it wasn't completely awful." she took a peek in a Jade's direction but the Goth had already left a stage. After few seconds Tori spotted her next to enormous speakers with Sinjin. Jade's hand was around his neck while his arms were flying wildly in the air. His two friends were watching the whole scene with conflicted expressions on their faces taking one step towards them and then two steps back. They clearly couldn't decide if they were ready to help Sinjin and cross Jade or just wanted to run away like half of the other staff members had already did.

"You witnessed one miracle. You shouldn't push your luck for another one." Andre followed her gaze and sighed loudly. Singing at Full Moon Jam was making Jade even more violent than usual. If someone really spoiled her performance there would be blood and scissors for sure.

"Do you have a better idea then?" Tori face him, trying not to sound hopeful. She didn't change her mind, but a sight of Jade choking someone wasn't exactly encouraging.

"Umm... A hamster plan?"

"So it's settled then. I'm asking her out" Tori announced with a finality in her voice. This time she tried not to look over where Jade left Sinjin on the ground and stormed out of the Asphalt Cafe.

"Tori, wait" Andre try to calmed her down. Panic in his voice. "I know you want to help Beck and all but you really should think this over. Like a million times, until you change your mind. Do you even like girls that way?" He smirked and raised his brow knowingly.

"Of course no, you perv. I would tell you if I did. But it doesn't matter." She shrugged. "It just a date. I'll ask her out, go somewhere nice with her and then live till the next day to tell about it. I'll show all of you cowards that this is in fact possible" She got up with a rise hand and poked Andre in the chest with her finger. Then before he could utter a word, she left their table.

It wasn't like she had somewhere to go to. She just had to get away from Andre before he talked her out of this. Tori Vega was stubborn and full of dedication, but to a certain degree. It was easy to be so confident in front of her best friend in a heat of the moment, but inside she was truly trembling. She could nearly feel Jade's fingers on her throat. What was she getting herself into?

* * *

Her palms were sweating. Her stomach tied into knot and she was quite sure that she was visibly shaking with every step. Her resolve was melting like ice in the summer.

"Listen, maybe we can find some guy to ask her out. Pay him or something? We can even split costs." Andre grabbed her arm and pulled her behind a locker she'd barely found courage to walk out from a second ago.

"Andre!" Tori snapped at him, her nervousness taking over.

"Chiz, relax. I just don't wanna lose my best friend." He rose his hands in surrender.

"I would appreciate it if you show me at least a little bit of support" She threw him a glare, while trying to stop her hands from shaking.

"What do you want me to say? Go tiger, get your girl?"

"Ow, no. Maybe something along a line: I got your back. I'll stop her if she tries to part your head from your body with her scissors."

"No way, on this one you're alone. I'm not coming anywhere near that murder weapon of her." A young musician took a cautious step back from her.

"But you just give me a speech about us being best friends!" This time she gave him an incredulous look.

"That doesn't mean I wanna join you on the other side!" He replayed defensively.

"You're terrible!" Tori threw her arms in the air. "Whatever..." she added after a moment, not paying attention to him anymore. If she wanted to do this before they began next class she had to go now. She took few deep breaths and left her little hideout at the end of the corridor.

"I'll really miss you!" Andre shouted after his friend, making her roll her eyes.

It was really a five second long walk, but Tori managed to make it last nearly twenty. She stopped twice, brushing her hair nervously with her fingers and then wiping her sweating hands on her pants. The second time she even begun to freak out about really combing her hair and maybe applying some makeup. She should look extra attractive while asking someone out, shouldn't she? She'd flirted with the guys in the past, but it had been always them taking her on a date not the other way around. She had no idea what she was supposed to do or say. Was it always so hard for guys or was it only extra hard for her because she was a girl asking out another girl, not to mention that this girl was Jade West?

While Tori was suffering her little breakdown in the middle of the corridor, Jade who was looking for something in her locker, noticed her at once. She send her an exasperated look and crossed her arms impatiently.

"Vega!" she shouted suddenly, making Tori jump in surprise and terror. "Do you have fleas or something? Stop fidgeting!"

"Ummm..." Tori finally closed the distance between them with three steps and tried to hold her hands together to prevent them from shaking. "I want to ask you something."

"I've figured that out already. Spit it out and don't make me waste my time on you." Jade hissed with irritation.

"I was wondering..." The brunette stuttered. She cut her sentence in the middle not sure how to form her question. It seemed like every sane thought had already left her mind leaving her feeling dizzy and terrified. Why had she even thought it was a good idea? Andre was right she hadn't really thought it over.

"Five." Jade took a threatening step closer to her with a big scowl on her face. "Four." Another step. This time Tori had to back down a little. "Three."

"What are you doing after school today?" She blurted out suddenly in one breath. Surprisingly it worked enough to stop Jade from coming after her.

"It's a fucking question of the millennium Vega!" Goth's scowl grew even bigger. She rolled her eyes clearly irritated. "I have to make sure Sinjin is not gonna fuck up my performance even more and then prepare myself. You should be perfectly aware of that, considering you go through this nearly every month, torturing us with your voice and stealing the spotlight from the more talented ones."

"Jade!" Despite being deeply scared for her life Tori couldn't hold her growl, when she heard other girl's cruel words. Not to mention that she hated her cursing. But she had to act quickly and somehow made her point, because Jade looked like she was done with her and more than ready to leave. "What I meant to ask was if you maybe want to hang out with me. Go out and do something fun?"

She really wasn't planning just saying it like that. Actually she kind of prepared a speech about how they should spend their last months at Hollywood Arts doing something crazy and liberating, enjoying their time. One glare from Jade made her forget every word and all the reasons why she actually thought spending time with her can have anything to do with the word "enjoying".

"Go out with you? Like on a date?" For a split second Goth's scowl disappeared, replaced by a surprised look. Her blue eyes were completely unreadable.

"Yeah, a date." The brunette answered shortly, not being able to form a longer sentence under Jade's deep gaze. It didn't even truly matter. No arguments she could possibly come up with could change Jade's mind, so she could say non as well.

"What for fuck sake could make you possibly think I would want to go on a date with you, Vega?!" If the Goth had looked angry before now she was like the walking fury. She backed Tori into the wall with few quick steps and trapped her there. "I hate you!" she hissed after a moment, because terrified brunette wasn't doing anything to answer her question.

"No. You like…" Finally she stuttered, but she couldn't even think where she was going with this, not with Jade invading her personal space angrier than ever. "Umm… When I'm sad?" She was trying to find anything to remind Jade that they actually were friends and there were like a million reasons for her to a least not hate her, but of course the first thing that come to her mind was that twisted sentence Jade had said to her on their 'date'.

"Are you trying to tell me that dating me would make you sad?" Jade looked at her like she couldn't decide if she want to hit her or laugh at her. Probably she would go with both.

"No!" Tori denied quickly, but one look at Goth's murder glare made her realize that it was bad answer. "Yes?" Even worse answer. "I-I-If you want?"

Wait a second! Did she just give Jade permission to make her sad? This situation was turning into a disaster even faster then she anticipated.

Goth sent her a sarcastic smirk, making Tori's insides twist into a knot. Jade's clearly thinking she was pathetic and this somehow knocked brunette out of her stupor. She looked around them. At this point they'd already made quite a scene. People around them were watching them closely but no one tried to interrupt. Tori had specially decided to ask Jade out in the middle of the corridor to have at least half of the student body to rescue her if the Goth took out her scissors, but everyone around them was pretending like everything was completely normal.

Then she spotted Andre in the same place she had left him. His head stuck out behind the locker, his mouth forming a voiceless "run!". All of this made her realize that they truly were terrified of Jade. Cowards, all of them. Everyone deserved a chance and she would show them that Jade West wasn't only a pure evil… because she wasn't, right?

"Listen" Tori took a deep breath and gently pushed Jade at the arm length. Maybe she would be able to think straighter when Goth's face wasn't a few millimeters away from her. "We're not always on the best terms… Well we're usually just arguing all the time and it'll be totally ok for you to say no, but I really wish to spend a little more time with you. We can do whatever you want." She looked at her hopefully. She couldn't exactly tell her that she was trying to distract her from killing Beck and Meredith, but maybe that kind of explanation for her actions would be enough.

Jade took her time before answering. It gave Tori a chance to look at her a little more closely. Her whole body was tense, arms crossed and lips sealed in a thin line, but there was something aside from anger in her eyes. Something else. Anxiety? Insecurity? Maybe even fear.

But it was Jade West. What could she possibly be scared of? She wasn't the one trapped against the locker, while asking out a psycho. Probably Tori just began to see things that wasn't there out of her own anxiety.

"Ok…" Jade said suddenly, her voice barely above a whisper so nobody else except Tori would hear her.

"WHAT?!" Tori couldn't stop herself from looking at her like she grown a second head. She couldn't hear it right, could she?

"Don't make me repeat myself Vega!" This time the whole corridor heard her without a problem. Few guys passing by them even dropped their books in fear.

"Sorry, right…I-I-It's great. Just great!" Tori stuttered awkwardly, playing with her hands. What was she supposed to say? It was like the last thing she expected!

The bell saved her from saying anything embarrassing by announcing the beginning of the last period. Jade just smirked deviously.

"So, see you later." Her smiled grew as she turned around and walked away, scaring poor guys who tried to picked up their books with a low growl.

Tori stood there awkwardly for a few more seconds waving at the leaving girl, not even caring that she wasn't looking in her direction. Finally when Jade disappeared from her line of view, she lowered her hand slowly.

"Oh my God…" she whispered to herself when finally her shock decreased enough for her to acknowledge everything that had happened.


	2. The headache and the song

**AN:** Thank you all for reviewing and favoriting this story, it's my first fanfic so I'm really appreciating this. I don't have everything planned yet, but I'm quite sure it's going to be a long piece. I'll try to update regularly, but now I'm leaving for holidays so no more chapters for next few weeks, sorry.

* * *

"I have to give it to you: you're officially my hero from now on." Andre suddenly appeared by her side and patted her on the back. "For a second I really thought you would be ripped into pieces. Even without scissors. She truly may have a soft spot for you, considering she didn't kill you with her rejection. Just almost scared to death" he giggled.

"Andre…" Tori tried to interrupt him, but her voice was so weak from emotional rollercoaster she had put herself through just a moment ago that he probably didn't even hear her.

"Now, when this nonsense is over we should celebrate tonight." He put his arm around hers and began dragging her towards their next class. Hallway was nearly hollow by now and she still didn't move from a spot against the locker. Few minutes longer and they would be late because of her stupor. "We're gonna get Cat and Robbie and have as much fun on Full Moon Jam as possible. It's not like every day you get a chance to survive confrontation with a psycho. And you can use this occasion to tell people about your near death experience." He rose his brows, looking a little thoughtful for a second. "Talking about rejection kinda sucks, but don't worry. You're still epic for going with this plan."

"Andre, wait a second…" she attempted to catch his attention, but young musician only sighed after hearing her serious tone.

"No, Tori I know what you're about to say" his voice became firm too. "You did enough. We're not interfering more. I still think we shouldn't even do it in a first place. Whatever's gonna happen next will be between Jade, Beck and maybe Meredith."

"But, listen to me…"

"Did you see how cross Jade was? I definitely saw, even from across a hallway. I was serious before. I don't wanna lose my best friend and I'm quite sure you're about to run out of luck if you push it."

"SHE SAID YES!"

Andre stopped suddenly in mid-step. He was still holding Tori's arm making her trip in a result. If he had been a cartoon character his jaw would have definitively hit a floor and his eyes would have fallen over.

"WHAT?!"

Few startled kids sent him funny glances, but luckily nobody stopped to watch their crazy conversation. Everybody was hurrying to classes.

"And that's what I said" Tori answered him with false nonchalance, still slightly irritated for his not listening to her.

"She. Agreed. To. Go. Out. With. You." This news had shaken him even more then her. "Like in: Jade West is going on a date with… you?" He emphasized last word while looking at her like she just admitted being an alien.

"Can you stop making it sound like there is something wrong with me?" she finally freed her arm from his tight grip and hurried him up with a gesture to start moving again. They were completely alone in a hallway and undoubtedly late.

"But there is something dangerously wrong with this whole situation!" young musician tried to shout and whisper at the same time while following his best friend. "Did she tell you why she agreed?"

"No, but I didn't exactly tell her why I asked." Tori visibly winced. "This conversation was just so weird."

"Maybe, but at least you survived so it was good enough. Learn to respect miracles finally." He speeded up a little, got past her and began walking backward while looking at her with worry in his eyes. "There's no way she said yes because she just wants to spend time with you. You've realized that she probably has ulterior motives, right?"

"Yeah, I'm not stupid." She fixated him with a weary glare. "I know it may be a trick to humiliate me in public or even drive somewhere and murder secretly." Her memory helpfully remained her of that one time when Jade had tried to "drive her to school". Through the deserted middle of nowhere with a shovel in the backseat.

Before Andre had time to reply with something even more pessimistic they made it to classroom and he walked right into the door with a loud thump. Tori chuckled silently, finally relaxing a little. Unfortunately her new gained good mood lasted only few second.

When they got inside, her eyes instantly landed on a well-know dark locks and blue eyes. How could she forget that Jade had math with them? The Goth watched them with a pleased smile, when they apologized for being late and clumsily got to their desks. Tori tripped twice, suddenly feeling nervous under her sight. She was torn between avoiding Jade's gaze and wanting to look at the frightening girl to check her reactions. Finally this dilemma was resolved by their seating arrangement. Tori and Andre sat at the front of the class with their backs toward Jade. They couldn't just stare at her, but the other way around Jade, who sat at the far end of the classroom, had no trouble with observing their conversation.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Tori whispered to her best friend miserably. "What kind of date someone like Jade would even like?"

"Wait a second, are you serious? Have you already forgotten what we talked about in the corridor? Are you really gonna do this?" Disbelief was clear in his voice.

The brunette sighed deeply. She was completely taken aback by the turn of events and willing to admit that Andre could be right with all his suspicions, but this didn't change a thing. All of this craziness wasn't only about helping Beck. Tori decided to really show people that there is something kind and human in Jade and she wasn't going to give up on that. Unfortunately it meant that firstly she had to believe in it and trust Jade to not turn this date into a torture.

"I can't just back out now, Andre. I would never do this to anyone. Especially Jade." She stated definitely. "Not to mention that she would kill me for standing her up. I've spent so much time trying to become her friend and now I accidently get a chance to know her better. I just don't want to mess it all up." Her voice became softer, when against herself she stole a glance at the Goth.

She wasn't surprised to see her staring at them with a little smirk and unreadable expression. She could basically fell Jade's gaze at her back the whole time. It definitively didn't help her nerves. At this rate Jade wouldn't even have to kill her on their date, she might just give her a heart attack before.

"Where can I possibly take her? She kinda hates everything." Another sigh escaped her lips when she once again turned to Andre. The boy was still watching her with serious expression, but finally he loosened up a bit.

"A cemetery?" He chuckled quietly. "I bet it's like a home for her."

"Alright, I get it. I volunteered to be murdered. But it doesn't mean I have to make it so easy for her to hide a body" She sent him a disapproving glare but couldn't contain her laughter.

"Right, you probably should go for something as public as possible…"

He tried to add something more but their quiet laughter finally alarmed the teacher of their complete lack of attention. Luckily old Mr. Jensen was a great guy, that hated punishing his student. He just reprimanded them and went on with his lesson. Either way, Tori didn't want to irritate him even more today so she fixed her gaze on the formula Mr. Jensen was writing at the moment.

Despite her effort of looking at the teacher, she had already completely given up on paying attention to anything he was saying. Her thoughts was constantly wandering back to Jade. Maybe something typical would work out? Like cinema or restaurant? But on the other hand there was absolutely nothing typical about Jade West, so it just didn't mix up. And one thing was certain: Nozu was out of question. One awkward "date" there was enough for a lifetime.

"She keeps staring at us." After some time Andre whispered again leaning a little in her direction.

"I know." She replied tiredly. All of this thinking and worrying had already given her a headache. And she didn't need to ask who he'd meant by "she". She could feel the staring too. Another factor to her headache.

"It's totally creepy..."

"I know…"

"You're so dead."

"And you're really not helping!"

* * *

"You nearly drilled a hole in my head with all the staring during math."

Maybe Andre was right the whole time. Maybe she really had subconscious suicidal thoughts. But she was so tired with all the overthinking and stressing she'd already done. With a clench stomach and Andre's disapproving gaze on her back she caught up with Jade just after the last bell. She was planning to find out a little more information about what the Goth was expecting from their date and if all of this wasn't just some kind of a joke for her.

"It was amusing watching you squirm all the time." Jade stopped in her track and sent Tori a devious smile. "Especially knowing I was the reason." She didn't wait for a reply, walking down the hallway.

"Jade…" With a sign and total mess in her head Tori quickly followed her. She was used to Jade sarcastic remark and making fun of her, but that comment successfully made her embarrassed a little. Or maybe it wasn't a comment but that knowing smirk? One thing was sure: Jade was very much aware of her nervousness.

"What now, Vega?" the Goth didn't slow down, but a least gave her a sidelong glance acknowledging her presence. "I agreed to go out with you not to be stalk by you."

"I'm not a stalker" Tori quickly protested, but she was relieved to hear Jade repeating her approval. She could be sure now that she didn't just dream it all up.

"So what are you doing at my locker?" Jade stopped abruptly and began browsing through her books. Tori waited patiently until the Goth tossed few of them into her locker, closed it and finally looked at her expectantly.

"I just want to talk with you." Tori admitted shyly. She'd never been so intimated by Jade before, never had so much trouble with talking to her, but now everything felt different somehow. Maybe it all was just in her head, but their frenemy's atmosphere seemed to has changed suddenly.

"And I've told you already that I don't have time for you today at all. I have to find Sinjin and…" She sighed deeply, clearly irritated but surprisingly not angry. "Whatever… You know what? You can tag along and help if you're so willing. I don't get it, but half of school seems to be madly in love with you. Maybe those idiots will stop fucking everything up if you watch them work…"

* * *

Jade was true to her words. Just as they'd gotten to stage she'd made Tori work just like she was a part of the preparation team. It wasn't exactly what the brunette had had in mind when she'd approached her after classes. They didn't really have time to talk expect for one moment when Tori was trying to stop Jade from strangling Sinjin for the third time and then she nearly choked him herself when he began making comments about kissing his savior. Actually most of her work included stopping other guys from shaking in terror after Jade'd shouted at them, but she kinda enjoyed herself.

She and Jade were a really effective team. It wasn't anything new, but it was easy to forget, because sadly they usually worked against, not with each other. Tori couldn't stop herself from appreciating Jade's knowledge and control of situation. If she hadn't been paralyzing everyone with a single glare, she would have been a perfect leader.

The preparation was nearly over, when Tori finished talking to the band and helping them to plug all the instruments and began looking for Jade. She spotted her at the side of the stage with black notebook in her hand. The Goth didn't notice her, looking lost in thoughts. She left her notebook open on the closest speaker and went to the microphone.

Tori approached her carefully stopping by the abounded notebook. The curiosity got the better of her when she stole one glance at the open page. She didn't dare reading anything but she was quite sure it was a song.

"Is it your song for tonight?" She pointed at the notebook, but kept her eyes on Jade watching her closely. "Can I?" Her voice was soft and careful even despite her curiosity. Jade was always pretty confident with her work, but she definitely wasn't the one to share something private with anyone else.

The Goth only sent her a sidelong glance while concentrating all her attention at the microphone, so Tori took this for a "yes". She read the whole thing trice completely taken aback. She was anticipating something more… drastic and macabre. With blood and dead people. But 'You don't know me' was as close to love song as someone like Jade could possibly get. And that's kind of complicated a few things.

What if there actually was someone special on Jade's mind? What worse: what if this someone was Beck? Jade never showed any interest in anyone else so maybe she just wanted her ex-boyfriend back. That would explain her extreme jealously when Tori and Beck had gotten a little closer.

In that case Tori just really messed everything up. Maybe she should help them to make up instead of moving on. Damned all the consequences, she had to know!

"Wow Jade. It's pretty impressive song. Did you write it for someone special?"

Without a warning, the Goth stormed towards her with a murderous look on her face.

"Do I look to you like some soppy romantic idiot who writes disgusting love songs?" She growled while snapping the notebook out of her hands.

"Umm, no… but…" The second time that day Tori was left nearly speechless by Jade's fury.

"But?" The challenge and the warning was clear in Goth's eyes, but the brunette wasn't going to back down.

"But…" She coughed a little to restore her voice and get rid of the lump in her throat. "This is quite a romantic song and you wrote it so...?"

She didn't anticipate an honest replay, actually she prepared herself for a physical violence, but to her surprise nothing drastic happened. Jade just squeezed her notebook tight and turned away from Tori.

"People like those stuff…" she murmured indifferently, before going back to the microphone.

Tori didn't believe it for a second - it was Jade West, the last thing she cared about was other people likings – but she let her get away with this. The brunette didn't even expect her to let her read the song in the first place, so she definitely wasn't about to push.

She watched Jade for a few seconds repeating in mind every word she remembered from her song. It reassured all of her anxieties a little. She had been right, there had to be something more to Jade than viciousness, horror and scissors. The Goth basically said so herself in that song. A small, subconscious smile appeared on Tori's lips.

"That crap's randomly turning off every few minutes." Jade interrupted her train of thoughts waving angrily the microphone in the air. "Where are those idiots who were supposed to take care of that?"

"Probably in the bathroom." Tori replayed with a barely contained giggle although she was truly sorry for them. "You made them piss their pants half an hour ago."

"Good. They deserve it" With a frown on her face she tried to use a microphone one more time, but when it didn't even turn on, she finally gave up. "We have to get a different one."

"There should be some in music's classroom." Tori joined her when they left Asphalt Café and headed to school. She tried to start a conversation by telling Jade that the band was ready and everything was finished with that, but the Goth only rolled her eyes at her with annoyance. She was silent until they got at their destination.

"So what do you think about it?" She asked suddenly with a crossed arms and stone face, while Tori was trying to find a working microphone. The question was completely out of nowhere, so the brunette wasn't even sure what it was about.

"I think they're gonna work just fine." She shrugged looking at the equipment.

"I mean the song, Vega!" Low growl brought all her attention towards Jade. "Do you like it?" The girl was looking at her expectantly. Her whole posture's screaming 'defensive'.

"Of course. It's beautiful" Tori answered without a second thought. "And it's so… you." She added softly.

Jade relaxed a little, but still didn't uncross her arms or lower her gaze.

"So me?" She raised a brow. "You mean frightening? It doesn't sound like a compliment."

"No! I mean… perfect. I can feel you in that song, it's making it true."

Atmosphere changed drastically. They fell into heavy silence, looking at each other. Jade with another unreadable expression and Tori suddenly too nervous to continue with her praises. They spent few long moments in that position until the sound of locking door broke their stupors. They exchanged surprised glances.

"Jade! Tori! Good to see you!" Sikowitz's subdued voice reached them through the closed door.

"Sikowitz! Why the hell did you lock us up?!" Jade instantly became angry storming towards the source of his voice.

"I still can't believe he's a teacher." Tori murmured more calmly staying far away from Jade's track.

"I have a news for you, Jade" Even through the door they could hear him gulp. "Bad news…"

This had to be really bad news if Sikowitz didn't even dare to stand before Jade. Which meant that Tori was definitively on the wrong side of that door.

"Sikowitz, wait! Let me out first!" She tried to come closer, but Jade completely blocked her way by grabbing the handle.

"What bad news?!" She shouted and squeezed the handle harder.

"There are small complication with your performance…"

"What complication?!"

"It turned out that we will have a special guest t-t-tonight." His voice began to shake when Jade cursed at that. "Y-y-your performance was postponed for later."

"Sikowitz! You're kidding me, right? Later how?" It was just a miracle that the handle didn't explode at that point.

"Umm… Two months later?"

"WHAT?!" She kicked the door hard, but it luckily didn't break.

"They will be playing the whole evening this time and in the next Full Moon Jam music's class will present their songs for grades. It leaves you free spot after two months." He explained quickly, but it didn't stop Jade from releasing her fury at the door.

"Sikowitz!" She hit a wooden surface few times with her palms.

"Umm.. yeah, I gotta go. Have fun tonight!" And with that, they heard his hurried footsteps down the corridor.

After few minutes Jade finally stopped fighting but she was still looking like she was about to breathe fire, so Tori didn't even dare to breathe too loudly. She waited until the Goth composed herself enough to not murder a casual witness.

"That fucker left us here locked up!" Jade crossed her arms once again.

"I'm really sorry about your performance." Tori took a cautious step in her direction, feeling truly bad for the girl.

"Great to hear it from a girl who always gets what she wants. It's not like they care here about anybody else." Jade fixated her with a ruthless glare.

"It's not true. There is at least one person that cares: me. It's such a shame they change plans. I couldn't wait to hear your song." She disagreed honestly.

Jade didn't reply to that, but she relaxed visibly, looking now more irritated than angry. Tori kept smiling at her softly when suddenly an idea struck her.

"But that means you're free tonight." She said spontaneously without even thinking it over. "We can go to Full Moon Jam together." It was public, it was something they both liked and it wasn't very serious. Just perfect.

"I was supposed to perform tonight and instead I'm gonna get a date with you?" Jade laughed sarcastically.

"Hey, you've already agreed to go out with me, so why not?" The brunette perfectly understood her unwillingness, but she wasn't ready to give up such an opportunity.

"Uh… Yes, I guess" Jade sighed with resignation. "This evening is already completely terrible, even you can't make it worse."

"Cool! Great! Tonight's gonna be so much fun, I promise." Tori stated enthusiastically bouncing from one foot to another. She was really pleased with the turns of events. Like REALLY pleased.

"Stop being so happy all the time. It's disturbing and irritating." She received a firm glare that cooled her a little, but couldn't destroy her optimism.

"Only if you stop being so angry." She challenged without hesitation.

"Whatever…" Jade just rolled her eyes at her. "First things first" She pointed at the door with her head. "Can you maybe by any chance pick up locks?"


	3. The date

**AN:** I'm back from holidays with a new chapter. I hope you'll like my approach to their first date, as I said before it'll be a quite long story with a slow development, before feelings get involved and everything becomes clear. Once again thanks for all of you that left a review, followed or favorite this story. Also I want to say sorry for any possible grammar mistakes or sentences that just sound strange in general. I'm not a native. I have been learning English since kindergarten, but I will probably never be 100% correct while using it.

* * *

"How's your face?" Jade broke the heavy silence, sending Tori a sidelong glance. The question was completely neutral and lacking of any signs of concern, but the brunette couldn't be more happy hearing it. It wasn't even about the question. After a nearly forty-five minutes of pure awkwardness Jade finally acknowledged her presence.

Tori really should have started thinking things over more before making a decision, because that date definitely wasn't her cleverest. Jade had been angry the whole time, only cursing under her breath whenever Tori had asked her what she thought about the visiting band. They weren't THAT bad, but with all honesty the Goth had the right to be furious. Tori wasn't holding that against her, actually she quickly begun feeling pretty bad for proposing this date in the first place. She had been trying to cheer her a bit, but the outcome was even worse. Her every comforting word was met with a murderous scowl. She never thought this could be possible, but after spending so much time with Jade that was just ignoring her, she even missed the one that was trying to make her life a living hell.

"It's a little sore, but fine." She answered with a hope in her voice and subconsciously touched a fresh, pink scar on her cheek.

When the two of them had been locked in that music classroom, she had been trying to call Andre to let them out, but Jade had never been the one to wait for a rescue. Firstly she had broken half of the paperclips in the classroom trying to pick up the lock. Tori wouldn't have been very surprised if she had succeeded, that type of skill suited Jade perfectly. Then she had decided they "had to do this the less impressive way" and had climbed out of the window. She landed gracefully like she had been breaking out of somewhere on the daily basic. Tori had tried to make her unlock the door for her, but Jade'd only replied with "don't make me go back there and kick you out of that window". So Tori'd jumped. Thankfully it hadn't been very high, but she had ripped her pants with the edge of the window's jamb and had ended up head first in the nearest bush. The Goth obviously had made fun of her for nearly five minutes, but then surprisingly she'd helped her take care of two cuts Tori'd gotten on her face.

"Stop touching it, dumb. I'm not helping you if you make it bleed again." Jade bluntly pushed Tori's hands away from her cheek.

"Yeah, sorry. Thanks for helping me with these in the first place. I would make a terrible burglar." She laughed lightly, despise that her back was still aching from a rough landing.

"I can't call it a surprise. We'd already known you'd be a terrible stuntman too, but it's always good to see that you suck at something."

"I live to please." Tori shrugged too happy with the fact that Jade was holding the conversation with her to care that she was being insulted.

But then Jade didn't answer her and went back to murdering the main vocalist of the visiting band with a glare, cutting their conversation. Tori considered finding another topic, but she knew what kind of respond (or rather lack of it) she would receive. Instead she excused herself and went to grab something to drink. She needed time to gather her thoughts and find a way to save this disastrous date.

She was in the middle of pouring Jade some punch, when a well know voice demanded her attention.

"Hey, Tori." Beck appeared at her side with an expressionless face.

"Beck! Did you get my message? Are you with Meredith?" She smiled knowingly at him, remanding herself why she was doing all of this in a first place.

"Yeah." He didn't smile back, just leaned against the table and looked at her expectantly. "I'm just curious what you mean by 'I took care of Jade'. You didn't do anything stupid, did you? Or should I prepare myself and Meredith for a brutal revenge?"

"I told you I would find someone to ask her out and I found. I took her on a date myself." She stated proudly.

"You did what..?" Beck finally lost his cool attitude and fixated her with a shook glance.

"I came here with her tonight. It's umm… awkward. Like REALLY awkward, but apart from that she's not looking like she's about to hurt anybody. Maybe expect our special guest, but…"

"You asked her out and she said yes…" The boy repeated quietly to himself, probably not even hearing a thing she was saying. "Why?"

"I don't know. Why everybody keeps asking me that?" She sighed deeply, a little annoyed with going through this once again with another person. "Maybe she just wants to kill or humiliate me. Or she's just feeling like going out with someone. You've apparently known about her bisexuality the longest, so you shouldn't be surprised seeing her with a girl."

"Are you bi too?" Beck scanned her with his eyes like he was expecting to find a big inscription 'Bisexual' somewhere on her body.

"No!" She's getting a little angry at his strange questioning. Where he was heading with this? "Why are you even asking that?"

"I don't understand one thing." He crossed his arms, ignoring her once again. "You didn't want to go to the museum with only me, because it would have looked like a date and possibly hurt Jade's feelings. But it's completely ok for you to date my ex-girlfriend."

"I didn't even think about this in that way…" She admitted honestly, completely surprised with an accusation, but then quickly shook her head. " Oh my god, Beck! Stop it. Are you thinking I have some kind of secret affair with her? I'm risking my LIFE to DISTRACT Jade, so YOU can spend this evening with Meredith. Stop being ungrateful friend and tell my how your date's going." She forced herself to smile at him and patted his arm encouragingly.

"Right, sorry" He didn't relax even a bit, but Tori let it go. "My date… It's… umm." He shoved his hands into his pockets and started scanning Asphalt Café with his eyes.

"Don't you dare telling me you're not having fun! After everything I've done!" She threw her arms in the air nearly spilling the punch.

"I…" Beck began with a grimace, but he stopped suddenly. "Jade's watching us."

Tori quickly followed his gaze and turned toward Jade. To say that the Goth was murdering them with her eyes was an underestimation.

"I think you shouldn't keep her waiting." Beck laughed for the first time that evening, shaking his head in amusement. "Or talk to anybody else, for the matter."

"And you should go back to having fun with Meredith." Tori poked him in the chest with her finger. "Look at the price I've to pay for that." She took her drinks and left, swallowing hard at the prospect of the soon fight she was coming closer to. She hadn't told Jade yet that Beck was here on a date. But now the Goth would probably notice it.

"I brought us punch." She tried to play it cool giving Jade her drink and sitting next to her.

"You were talking to Beck." The Goth stated sharply with the accusing tone. There wasn't a question anywhere in that statement, but Tori knew that Jade wanted her to tell her everything about what they had been talking about. And she wanted it now.

The brunette didn't see any point in laying. It's not like Jade couldn't figure it out herself. So she took a deep breath and prepared herself for the worst.

"He's here with a girl. On a date." Jade's face didn't show any signs of uncontrollable fury yet, so she added carefully: "With Meredith."

"MEREDITH!" Jade nearly crushed her plastic cup, spilling a little punch everywhere. "That fucking… I've always knew she had her eyes on him. I remember that one time…" Tori tried to release her hold on the cup and stop it from bursting completely, but Jade pushed her hands away. "Don't touch me." She hissed, but thankfully she didn't resume her shouting.

To Tori's surprise the Goth took a deep breath, put down the cup and shook off the remainders of the punch of her hand. Maybe her crazy distraction plan was working?

"Whatever. I don't care." Jade crossed her arms with a stone face. "And I've already suspected that."

"You have?" Tori send her a dumbfounded look.

"They came together half an hour ago." Jade pointed at the rows of chairs and loungers on their left. Tori quickly located Beck with a pretty girl. They were talking, but Beck peeked towards them every few minutes. "He's watching us the whole time with this stupid, unbelieving face. I have to say it's even a little funny."

Tori bit her lip in thoughts. Andre was doing exactly the same, keeping a close eye on them from the opposite section of the Asphalt Café. Tori spent so much time praying that Jade wouldn't notice it, that actually she was the one that didn't note that in fact a lot of people was stealing glances at them.

"As if it's not awkward enough." She murmured to herself, but Jade had to catch her word, because her lips curled up in a little smile.

"Get up, Vega." The Goth rose to her feet decisively and hurried Tori up with a gesture.

"Where are we going?" The brunette followed her curiously thorough a rows of sitting, standing and dancing teenagers.

"Somewhere your best friend couldn't see me murdering you." Jade answered with a serious tone, but the ghost of the smile was still present on her lips.

Tori actually was more nervous about Jade's knowing about Andre's starring than her threats, so she didn't stop in her track. And after such a long time of being ignored this was a nice change.

They found a free spot at the very back of the Asphalt Café. The bushes were hiding them from the most of the curious eyes and the music was really quiet here. Jade, clearly satisfied, threw herself at the colorful lounger.

"It's a lot nicer in here." Tori commented joining her.

"And we don't have to listen to that crap. They suck even more than you." Jade gave her a sidelong glare, but it wasn't the angry one. Actually the Goth looked a lot calmer and ready to have some kind of a normal conversation with her. That's pleased and disturbed Tori at the same time. Has their date finally began to look like a date?

"I will take that as one of your twisted compliments." The brunette replayed with a nervous laughter, while trying to figurate the right topic to start with Jade. It's not like she couldn't talk to her, but this date thing was really messing with her head. How do you date a girl? How do you date Jade West? "So… umm…" They should have probably tried to get to know each other better, so… "What's your favorite colour?" She blurted out and nervously ran her fingers through her hair.

"I'm not answering that." Jade scowled and crossed her arms.

"Why?" Tori wasn't expecting the eager cooperation, but that emotionless replay surprised her a little.

"Three reasons." The Goth raised three fingers. "First: it's a stupid question. We're not going through this first date's shit. Second: you're definitively blind." She pointed at her clothes. Black blouse, black boots and black skirt. The only thing that wasn't completely black was her blue and grey flannel shirt. "Third: you're also stupid, Vega. Just like your question. We know each other for so long, that you have to be seriously retarded to not know my favorite colour by now."

"You've got the point." Tori chew her lower lip. "I'm sorry. I'm kinda nervous. It's… my first date with a girl" She decided to be at least half honest with her, before she'll say something more dumb or basically irritate Jade with just her existence.

For a split second Jade's expression softened.

"Mine too." She admitted with sincerity in her voice.

"Really?" Tori wasn't sure what she was supposed to make out of this. The first question that came to her mind was 'so how do you know you're bi?', but it's a double-edged sword. Jade would probably have asked her the same thing and she didn't want to go through this.

"You know… It's always been just Beck. Nothing serious apart from him." The Goth was surprisingly genuine and open. It made Tori question the point of her plan once again. Did Jade miss her ex-boyfriend? Did she want him back? She wanted to ask, but their date wasn't exactly the perfect time for that.

"And nothing serious at all on my part." She laughed stiffly, remembering her past disastrous relationships. Jade just looked at her with unreadable expression. Silence swallowed them again, but it wasn't that awkward. Maybe even a little contented as both of them admitted in a way that they were nervous with this unusual situation.

Tori went through their conversation in her head and quickly realized that Jade was indeed right. It wasn't a normal first date. Even forgetting about the part that they're both girls. They knew each other for such a long time. But there was still so many thing about Jade that Tori would have like to know. Sometimes she felt like she didn't really know her at all.

And then the sudden idea occurred to her. The smile crept onto her lips.

"Jade? I have an idea. We can play a game…"

"NO! What are you, five?" The immediate replay didn't startle her.

"Wait. Let me finish." She continued firmly and her smile's growing bigger with every word. "You were right. We spent together quite a long time, so maybe we can do this date's stuff the other way around. Make it into a game. We would ask each other questions. You would answer for me and I for you. The one that gets more correct answers win." She looked at the Goth with hope and joy in her eyes.

The respond didn't came at once, but it was a good sign. Jade was really thinking her words through.

"And what does the winner get?" That was the first thing she asked. Of course with a devious smile.

Tori could only gulp at that, knowing she had to agree on whatever Jade propose if she wanted this to work out.

"I didn't think about this, yet. What do you have in mind?"

Jade grinned from ear to ear.

"The winner can ask the loser to do one thing for her and the loser can't say no. No matter what she asks and when she asks."

"It sounds…" Tori tried to gather her thoughts. If Jade won, she would make her into her slave without a doubt. But it was worth a risk. "Fair."

"Then let the game begin." Jade said in her most creepy voice, making Tori feel like she just ended up in one of the Saw movies. "You can go first."

The brunette quickly got rid of the terrifying thoughts that Jade'd easily instilled in her head and put all her efforts in creating a question. If she wanted to win, she had to ask about something she'd already known about Jade and preferably something Jade didn't know about her.

"Favorite movie." She stated after few seconds proud of herself. "Yours is The Scissoring." Jade just rolled her eyes at that and nodded her head in agreement. "And mine?" Tori was nearly beaming, which only made Jade rolled her eyes again.

"You look like a rom-com or drama type, so probably something disgusting and stupid." The Goth replied coldly.

"You're close, but it's not an answer." Tori ignored the sarcasm with a smile, but crossed her arms firmly. She wasn't going to let Jade win… For her own sake.

"Ok, then let it be… The Notebook? It's like every teenage girl's number one."

Tori sent her an astonished look at first. She didn't even expect her to know about the existence of that movie, but after second thought it was definitively Cat's influence. Not to mention that Jade wanted to be a screenwriter, she'd likely tried to be up to date with every popular movie despise the gander.

"It's a good one, but I've actually always preferred A Walk to Remember..." She was preparing to elaborate about her reasons, but Jade's blank stare stopped her quickly. "…Which you've probably never heard about."

"I think Cat talked about it once." The Goth frowned lightly. "Never mind. My turn." The devious smile was back. "The blood type."

This time Tori sent her a blank stare. What kind of question was that? Who wanted to talk about a blood type on a date? Then it hit her.

"Jade! You can't ask me that!" She crossed her arms.

"And tell me why, Vega." Jade mimicked her position.

"Because it's unfair! You stole my medical record, so you know the answer and I can only try to guess."

"You can't punish me for doing my research!"

"You STOLE my medical record. In a world of normal people it's called a crime, not 'doing research'."

"And in my world it's called 'you're afraid of losing'!"

They held a staring contest for few long moments.

"It's even hardly a question you could ask someone on a date." Tori sighed deeply, feeling that she would lose this quarrel. After all Jade always had an argument of using scissors at her side.

"Don't exaggerate, Vega. It's an important question. You never knew what could happen before the date ends." The implication was quite clear even without, a cruel smile on Jade's lips. Tori definitively wasn't going to carry on in this direction of the conversation.

"Whatever." She sighed again." Let me guess: you're next question will be about allergies?"

"What's wrong with that this time?" Jade rolled her eyes, but she was clearly more playful than irritated. "Don't you want to know my allergies? Maybe I'm allergic to some type of flowers, too. You will bring me them on one of our dates and kill me or something."

That scenario was so unbelievable that Tori couldn't stop a little smile that formed on her lips.

"As if you would ever accept flowers from me, but right, we can't let this happen, can we?" She finally released her crossed arms and sat more loosely. "So what are your allergies, Jade?"

The Goth looked a little surprised that Tori didn't continue with their bickering, but she didn't try to resume it.

"I'm allergic to cats." She replied sincerely.

"Cats? Oh…" Tori looked at her more closely. "Funny. I've always imagined you're a cat's person."

"You wasn't mistaken. If I had to buy myself a pet, it would be a cat. Sadly it would suffocate me in a few hours."

"I'm sorry. It sounds so unfair."

"Maybe you've missed that fact princess, but life's usually very unfair for the most of us." Jade's expression darkened for the second as she sent a quick glance in the direction of the stage. "It's nothing new."

"But it shouldn't be that way. I'm truly sorry for all of this." She was completely honest saying this. All this crap that came up with Jade's performance was just awful. The longer she watched how much it really hurt Jade, the worse she felt. She'd already promised herself that she would personally keep an eye on Sikowitz so he wouldn't mess it up the next time too.

"I've already told you twice, Vega. I don't want your pity. Especially YOUR pity." Came the typical respond.

Pushing the subject was just as meaningless as resuming their arguing about Jade's questions. By some miracle the Goth was opening up to her a bit, so Tori decided to let her go with her bizarre approach to their game and just carry on.

"So I've guessed your favorite animal. Now you guess mine. It's my question. The one between your medical investigation."

Few wrinkles showed up at Jade's forehead as she was thinking deeply. She really was determinate to win.

"I'll go with the dogs." She said finally and Tori couldn't stop a smile.

"You're right, but can I ask how you figured it out?" She was sure she's never approached the subject.

"It would make sense you know?" Jade smirked at her. "We basically the opposites so if I'm a cat's person you should be the dog's one. And you have a great hand for them. Do you remember when we were trying give Beck a rott…" She stopped looking for the right word.

"Rottweiler?" Tori finished for her hardly containing her laughter.

"Yeah, that one. They told me later that the dog has some massive aggression problem they didn't catch, it was a pure miracle it didn't attack us. You're a fucking beast tamer or something." For a split second respect and admiration appeared in Jade's eyes, but it was gone so fast that Tori wasn't even sure she didn't imagine it.

"Wow." She answered with a little smirk at the accidental double meaning. Here she was, having a civil conversation with Jade West. A beast tamer indeed. "I can hardly say it was for the better. If we had seen in the shelter that he was aggressive, Beck's father would still have all his fingers."

Jade laughed at that softly.

"Better him than us. I can't really call your help useless."

Tori'd known Jade long enough to understand that in her messed up mind it was a way to say 'thank you'. She smiled back at her.

"You know, I still have that kite you wanted me to 'fix'. My father found it in a living room after we left and really fixed it, so I kind of keep it."

Jade's lips formed a soft smile at that. It wasn't her typical, cruel one. This time it was almost… warm. Tori was completely taken aback by this, but couldn't not notice that the Goth looked so much prettier when her features soothed and she wasn't shouting lightings from her eyes. Nearly stunning. If only more people could saw that, there would be queue to ask her out.

"Ok, so we kind of finished two rounds." Tori coughed a little, gathering her thoughts and ending this peaceful, unusual moment between them. "You get 3 correct answers and I get 2. I'll begin the third round, but please, we're leaving my medical history for good."

"Just go on with your another boring question."

If Jade was playing to win, Tori should too.

"Your favorite play we performed at school." She smiled slyly. "It's 'Demonic Son', right?" After so many times the principal had been refusing to produce any of Jade's play, she had agreed once. And promised solemnly to never do this again.

"Are you suggesting I'm vain?" Jade answered her with a smirk and sinister gleam in her eyes.

"Is it your next question? I can't called it hard" Tori was feeling unusually perky and smooth in Jade's company, really enjoying herself.

"No, smartass and it's not vanity, just truth. Half of Sikowitz's plays is defining the word 'strange' and other half is ending up with a disaster. At least once we had something spectacular and surprising that moved the audience."

"They were so moved that few run away before the ending. I think they weren't prepared for a brutal exorcism at the school play." Tori rolled her eyes, remembering how that particular scene left even her feeling disturbed. She'd never been good with the horrors, but she can appreciate Jade's story and positively say that the Goth was really talented with that genre. Actually it was nice change from all the plays that they produced with Sikowitz. Maybe, just maybe (and she definitively wasn't going to tell Jade that) 'Demonic Son' was one of her favorites too. "Your turn now."

"I'm suspecting it's not 'Steamboat Suzy'…" Jade joked.

"Maybe If I hadn't been unconscious for most of the time I would have enjoyed it, thank you very much. But I heard Sikowitz's acting was truly memorable."

"You can put it lightly that way and they're saying my plays are sending people to therapist. I can't understand why people weren't running away from that." They begun laughing together, all faults long forgotten.

"Oh, I probably shouldn't make fun of that. Forty years old guy playing a teenage girl is just as ridiculous as teenage girl playing a forty years old astronaut." Tori smiled fondly at the memory. This whole play was just so awkward and crazy, but she couldn't exactly complain about her chance to get to know Jade better when they were preparing that.

"Believe me, Sikowitz was much worse. Your mustache was completely awful, but the uniform actually… didn't make you uglier." The Goth changed her position anxiously and for a second hide her eyes form Tori, who once again was completely taken aback by her sincerity. In Jade's world that was nearly a compliment, but it was quickly forgotten when she composed herself. "I guess that isn't your favorite one too."

"Are you going to discuss every play with me until you sense the one I like the most?"

"No, I'm giving up. You play in almost everything, so there is too much to choose from." The Goth sent her accusing glance.

"Why are you so sure my favorite play is the one I played in?" She replied resentful.

"Then surprise me, Miss modest."

Tori contemplated her request for few moments. She had kind of asked a question not being sure of an answer herself. Jade was so unexpectedly honest and civilized with her, so she should repay her with her own kindness and sincerity.

"Ok, I liked that drama from last year starring me and Beck, but your 'Demonic Son' is one of my favorites too and I wasn't participating in that in any way. You were right, it was so… different from everything we had done. In a good way different. Psychotic but good."

"Of course it was." Jade replied with a cocky smile, but gentle look. "We have a draw now and my turn." She didn't even need a second to think it through. "The stuffed animals from our childhood. I know you have a white teddy bear with a blue cap and you're still keeping him in your bed."

"Jade…" Tori just let out an exasperated sigh. At first she was surprised with such a un-Jade topic, but she quickly figured out where was the catch this time.

"Yes, Vega?"

"Can you at least try playing fair?"

"You wanna know what is unfair? Changing rules during the game. What do you have against this question?"

"You know about my teddy bear because you broke into my room and went through my things. You're such a stalker and you had the guts to call me one today." And there came back their constant bickering. It just couldn't go so smoothly all the time.

"I like to have an advantage over people. As we can see gaining that knowledge paid me right, so you probably should learn instead of complaining." Tori's glare didn't ease, so Jade rolled her eyes at her. "If it'll make you shut up about this, I can give you a hint. As a child I did have a stuffed animal." She added.

"Really? I thought your toy was a hammer." Tori still wasn't sure how she was supposed to interpret it, but she remembered Jade saying that.

"Yes. You're right, but I had a stuffed animal too for some time."

"Are they producing fluffy scissors?" They both smiled at that, but Jade shook her head 'no'. "So maybe a typical teddy bear, but in some kind of frightening vampire clothes?" Tori continued, imagining little Jade with that kind of toys. She just couldn't stop smiling at that.

"Wrong. But I like your way of thinking. Maybe you should give up on singing and open a toy store." Jade tilted her head away from Tori and her smile froze on her lips. "I had a stuffed dragon. It was green with blue wings and purple star on its head."

"It sounds lovely."

"I cut it with my scissors when my parents divorced." She finished emotionless.

Tori didn't know how she should reacted to that. She'd noticed long ago that there was something wrong with Jade's childhood, but she had never pushed a subject. Actually she knew nearly nothing about Jade's family. She had met her father once (what an awful meeting) and that was all. She wasn't even sure if Jade was an only child or had siblings. Sometimes she wondered whether even Beck knew anything about the Wests. Maybe it was a time to change that.

"Jade?" She begun carefully. "Do you have any siblings?"

"Is it your question Vega?" the Goth replied utterly impassive. "It's kinda suicidal."

"I know, but I would like to know. It's quite a basic knowledge. You're meeting Trina everyday and I don't even know if you're an only child." Not like anyone would be happy about knowing Trina, but that really sounded bad.

"I have a half-brother, but I haven't talked to him for few years and… umm a former step-sister if that counts." Jade didn't show any signs to be moved by the subject. She just kept her expression blank.

"Wow, it's…" Tori was desperately looking in her head for any word that wasn't 'sad', 'strange' or 'depressing'. "Interesting."

"Hardly." Jade snorted at that. "But you know what's really interesting? Are you a virgin?" Devious smirk was back at her lips.

Tori couldn't say that she wasn't expecting that question, but it still made her a little uneasy.

"Do we have to? It's embarrassing." Her cheeks blushed despise her strong efforts not to.

"It's funny, Vega. You banned me for my 'wining question', but I won't let you destroy all the fun." Jade stated firmly. "I would say it's a yes for you."

Entirely red Tori nodded her head with affirmation.

"Good" came Jade's only respond.

"Good?" Tori looked at her shocked. She wouldn't have been surprised if the Goth had started laughing at her or called her prude.

"Good." She repeated. "Did you even have a boyfriend that wasn't trying to use you or cheat on you? It would be quite a waste." She explained shortly. Her answer warmed Tori a little, but the brunette was more than ready to move on from that particular subject.

"I guess it's a no for you." She said without a long thinking. Jade was dating Beck for two years so it was completely logical.

The Goth confirmed her answer and they carried on with a game, losing track of time. They were arguing with nearly every question, but then always everything ended with a laugh. Tori was truly enjoying herself and she was quite sure that somehow Jade managed to forget about her canceled performance and had some fun too. Torturing Tori with the most intimate and embarrassing questions had to lift her spirit and it turned up it was the best way to win. They went through nearly all party-like, sexual and alcoholic things and most of them was just an easy 'no' for Tori, but with Jade it was a Russian roulette. She was the bad girl type, but she had some rules and standards so sometimes it was a 'yes', sometimes a 'no' and sometimes something even more complicated. After more or less twenty five rounds Jade had a double advantage over Tori. It was definitely the most embarrassing thing that evening. She spent so much time trying to befriend Jade and it turned up that the girl that swore to hate her guts know her so much better instead. But she was learning, trying to remember and piece together every parts of Jade that the Goth allowed her to see.

Slowly they were running out of questions, which were becoming more and more random and strange with every round. They finished with all sex-related question, but never touched any other parts of relationship, so Tori decided to went with that.

"Have you ever been in love?" Jade visibly froze at that, but Tori didn't pay this much attention. "For you is an obvious yes, but for me?"

"I don't care." She cut her sharply and looked away. "How long are we staying anyway?" She changed a subject suddenly.

"What?" Tori blinked surprised.

"That crappy band just came back on the stage for their last number. Most of the people's already left."

Tori looked around quickly realizing that they truly lost track of time. It was late evening and all the spots around them were empty.

"We can go. It's not like I pay that band much attention anyway." She was hoping that this remark would brighten Jade's sudden dark mood, but the Goth only murmured something under her breath and stood up. Tori joined her quietly as they left Asphalt Café. "Do you have your car with you?" She asked.

"No. My fourth step-mother borrowed it after she fucked up hers this afternoon." Jade winced angrily. "You live close. I will walk you and catch a bus from there." She stated.

It was really nice thing to propose, but the way Jade said it with a spite in her voice, it sounded like a threat or a curse. Tori gulped and followed her obediently out of school. Their playful atmosphere had suddenly changed and she had no idea why. Did her question unsettled Jade so much? Was love a unpleasant topic for her? Once again her thoughts went back to Beck.

"You won, you know?" They were in the midway when she couldn't bare the silence any longer.

"Yeah" Jade nodded her head absentmindedly.

"Are you not going to make me a slave now or something?" That's finally made Jade smile a little.

"No, I will keep it for something extra."

"Should I be scared?" Tori allowed herself a little smirk even though she knew it could end very badly for her.

"You should be scared all the time. Don't tell me I'm losing my skills." Luckily Jade just sent the brunette her own typical smirk.

"Too late. I will never be so scared once again, after I know you used to drew hearts on your things in a kindergarten." Tori couldn't stop a warm feeling at the remainder of that part of their talk.

"You better keep it to yourself." Jade became stiffed and frowned her brows.

"Yeah, your dark secrets are safe with me." Tori smiled encouragingly at her, but it didn't make the Goth relax even a bit.

"I'm serious, Vega. This stupid game stays between me and you. Am I clear?" She looked directly at her with a serious expression. Tori sobered immediately at that.

"Of course." She tried to put as much honesty in her voice as possible. "I'm not a gossip type anyway. Cat's doing that enough for all of us." She tried to loosen up the atmosphere again, but actually she was kind of becoming nervous herself. For some unfathomable reason Jade was opening up a bit to her, showing a little trust in her and she was here in the first place only to show people that Jade could be dated. The plan basically assumed that she would tell everybody about this date the next day. Of course, it still could be done with skipping few major parts, but suddenly it felt… so much more complicated. Tori couldn't get rid of a sudden nagging feeling at the back of her mind. Like she'd just did something really, really bad and immoral.

The silence enveloped them, but this time it wasn't so awkward, just a little nervous. For the first time Tori was too distracted by her own thoughts to break it. She let the slightly cold wind calm her a little, while she walked next to Jade, both of them stealing glances at each other. No more words were said until they reached Vega's house.

"Congratulation to you" The Goth stated finally, smirking.

"Umm… Thank you?" Tori looked at her suspiciously, not knowing what she meant.

"You've managed it. You haven't make this evening more terrible." Jade was still typically sarcastic, but something softened in her posture.

"I really had a lot of fun today." Tori answered her seriously and couldn't stop smiling. Being completely honest with herself she had never had so much fun on a date. It wasn't the regular one, but she had never expected anything simple for Jade and she was actually positively surprised with turns of the events. They talked a lot. They laughed together. It was just… perfect.

"Me too…" Jade whispered softly, anxiously making a step closer to Tori.

Maybe if the brunette wasn't so lost in her thoughts she would realized, what made Jade so nervous suddenly. Maybe she would realized that they were on a date and it was the end of it. That they're standing outside her front door and were about to say 'goodnight'. Maybe she wouldn't be so surprised when Jade closed a distance and connected their lips in a gentle kiss that made Tori's mind go completely blank. She stood absolutely frozen for few seconds, her brain disconnected from her body with no possibility to reclaimed control of situation. Then it all caught up with her when she took abrupt step back, nearly crashing her mother's flowers.

"Vega!" Jade clearly was trying to sound angry, but she couldn't cover up uncertainty that sneaked into her voice.

Tori was trying really badly to stopped her racing thoughts and found something to say, anything. It wasn't that the kiss was unpleasant or something, it just came as an obvious surprise. Jade West had kissed her. Like, OH MY GOD, Jade West had just KISSED her. That was the most mind-blowing thing that had ever happened to her in her whole life.

"I just… I-I-I" She began stuttering. "Don't kiss on a first date." She blurted out, immediately wanting to smash herself for that. Did her melted brain really can't come up with anything less weird. As if Jade hadn't called her a prude enough that evening. Surprisingly Jade didn't begin laughing at her, though she clearly didn't buy her answer.

"Where are you from, eighteenth century?" The Goth rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, but when Tori didn't show any sigh of recovering from her breakdown, she relaxed and sighed deeply. "Then next time, prude. Sleep well." She smiled lightly and awkwardly patted her on an arm, before turning around and leaving Tori alone.

"Goodnight." The brunette shouted faintly after her, watching her disappearing into the night. She had nearly composed herself, when her whole mind froze for a second time in a few seconds with only two words on a constant repeat. NEXT TIME?!


	4. The secret art of saying no

"…Tori? Tori?!"

The brunette blinked quickly, finally noticing Trina's annoyed face just in front of hers.

"Trina? What are you doing?" She quickly took a step back from her sister's suspicious sight.

"What am I doing?" The older Vega looked at her with exasperation. "What are YOU doing, blocking the door as a statue? I had to call your name four times." She crossed her arms.

"I…" Tori looked around distracted like she just saw her own house for the first time ever. She was stuck were Jade had left her few minutes ago too stunned to notice that her sister parked her car and approached her. "Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind" She murmured and stepped away.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Trina opened the door, walked inside and waited for Tori to join her.

"Yeah. It's fine." The brunette answered tiredly, her words sounding absolutely unconvincingly even for her.

"Great." Trina shrugged happily, not really paying attention. "Then you can make us dinner." She threw herself on the couch. "And find me a remote." She added after few seconds of ineffective looking around.

"You kicked it under the coffee table when we were leaving." Tori sighed deeply, passing her sister and opening the fridge. Their parents left for the evening, but thankfully there was plenty of food left for the two of them.

Trina tried to make her take out the remote, but after a few failed attempts she got it herself. She turned on some stupid soap opera and began babbling about how she had chased the visiting band's car trying to give them her number. Tori just shook her head lightly and tuned her out. Trina was irritating as always, but this time it was kind of soothing too. After that crazy evening with Jade, it made Tori feel like not everything just took a 180 degree turn.

Even a little mention of the Goth was making her shudder. Why on Earth someone who claimed to hate her had kissed her? Was it another part of some twisted, dangerous plot against her life (or at least against her career)? Maybe it all was just a dream? Maybe Tori had gotten some serious brain damage after she had hit her head this afternoon... Maybe it was just an illusion or hallucination.

She stole a glance at Trina that was in the middle of describing how she had tried to kiss main vocalist and nearly had jumped into his car through the window. No, she couldn't imagine or dream that conversation. She wasn't enough of the masochist.

So it had happened indeed. But… why? They had been on a date. It's a normal thing that happens on dates. Maybe Jade had just saw it like that. BUT WHY?! Was she actually okay with dating Tori?

It didn't make sense at all and only produced more problems that Tori didn't want to think about. She was supposed to go to school tomorrow, say something along a line 'look I was on a date with Jade West and still have all of my vital organs' and move on. There wasn't even a place for a kiss in that plan… or for the best date she has ever had. Her plan turned out to be too successful for her own good.

"Auu!" She hissed suddenly, looking disbelieving at her cut, bleeding finger. She put down the kitchen knife and walked to the bathroom, murmuring to herself.

"You know, I prefer ketchup on my sandwiches instead of your blood." She heard Trina's voice while looking around for a mini first aid kit.

"I'll keep it in mind, thanks for your concern!" She shout back with irritation. She spent few minutes trying to clean her middle finger. The cut wasn't deep or dangerous, but it was bleeding badly. Finally she found a plaster and sealed the finger safely. She was about to leave the bathroom when she heard soft steps approaching her. Trina stuck her head inside, quickly taking in the surrounding and her sister's state.

"You look distracted." She judged finally. Tori could only roll her eyes at Trina's perceptivity.

"Because I am distracted." She tried to contain her irony.

"You put the bread into the oven." Trina was getting more and more interested in her sister's wellbeing (and probably mostly their dinner's wellbeing).

"I did?" That remark quite surprised Tori. She really didn't remember doing that, but to be honest she didn't remember anything for her time in the kitchen except silently freaking out.

"Yes. Can you explain me what is going on?" The older Vega's suspicions and curiosity was picked up and it was obvious that she was waiting for some kind of hot gossip.

"I'm… just… distracted." Tori repeated tiredly. She wouldn't denied a chance to talk to someone about all of this, but definitively not Trina. And not now. She had to sort it out in her head first and stop freaking out whenever the thought of that kiss enter her mind. "I think I'll lay down earlier. You can finish making dinner… or whatever it is that I left in the kitchen. I'm not hungry."

She didn't wait for Trina replay or her complains. But surprisingly her sister didn't try to order her around, just quietly left her alone. Maybe she really was more concerned about her wellbeing then the dinner. The perfectly uncommon end to the most insane day ever.

* * *

"So… Once again to make it all clear."

"Andre…" Tori sighed deeply. "I've told you the whole story trice already. There is no way to make it clearer. We went out. She didn't kill me. We talked an awful lot, laughed even more and generally had fun. Then she walked me home, kissed me at the doorstep, accepted the fact I didn't kiss her back and promised we will repeat this." She couldn't not notice that the short version of that story really sounded like a recipe for a perfect date.

Andre just shook his head disbelievingly, but his shock was finally calming down. He managed the faint, but playful smile.

"Just tell me who is she. I wanna meet that perfect girl." He cracked a joke.

"Andre." Tori lost counts how many times she had to call his name during that conversation and she knew the worst was only coming: the jokes, the mocking and the 'I told you it was a bad idea.'.

"No, seriously. Who is she and what the hell did she do to Jade West? What is going on in here?" Andre was still smiling, but his question was completely serious.

"I would like to know myself, but I'm not wiser. I feel like I'm missing something." She went in her head through all possible scenarios she had analyzed yesterday, laying in bed and staring at the ceiling. Obviously her going to bed earlier hadn't changed the fact that her restless thoughts hadn't calmed down till the morning hours.

"Maybe you just went out with a wrong girl." And there was another joke. Tori gritted her teeth in irritation. She deserved a little mocking, but she was too tired and confused to deal with it.

"Or aliens kidnapped and brainwashed her." She rubbed her temples. "Really Andre, I spent nearly whole night thinking it all over. There is no simple, logical explanation to this. And definitely none of them promising me any good."

"And you are surprised by this? She's certainly planning something special for you. Whatever it is just remember to never let your guard down. Jade can't be trusted." The boy looked lost in thoughts, considering everything Tori had told him. Luckily he didn't notice as she gulped and squirmed nervously.

'Jade can't be trusted'. It hit her really hard. What an irony. Yes, maybe Jade indeed was planning something against them, but for now she had only showed sincerity and trust toward Tori, who instead actually was the one with the PLAN since the beginning. The feeling of guilt was now a constant guest in her mind. At least she had tried to keep her promise to Jade. The only thing she had told Andre about their game was that they had talked about stuff and got to know each other a little. She had been afraid that her best friend would have tried to find out what she'd meant by the stuff, but thankfully the kiss and 'next time' took all his attention.

"We're in no position to judge her." She murmured to herself. Andre didn't catch her words, poking his lunch absentmindedly.

Tori didn't try to stop him. She glared at her own food, but her appetite was still successfully suppressed by her growing anxiety. She forced herself to eat one of her french fries.

The two of them were sitting at their usual table at Asphalt Café. Luckily nobody else from their gang had showed up yet, so Tori had plenty of time to tell Andre everything and then repeated the story as many times as he needed to believe it. She had been nearly dying the whole morning to talk to him and he was just as impatient. It'd turned out he had been trying to call her yesterday few times, but she'd completely forgotten to take out her phone from her jacket and hadn't heard it.

"What are you gonna do about all of this?" The young musician asked finally, looking like he just realized they still didn't discuss the most important part. "You know, it can't carry on. You've already created quite a mess." He looked at her with suspicion in his eyes.

"Relax Andre." She raised her hands in surrender and acceptance. "I'm soooo not going to ask her out again. But what if she proposed it to me?" Andre just snorted at that, so she fixated him with a solemn glare. "It sounds crazy, but after everything that has already happened we can't say it's impossible."

"I thought you love miracles." A smirk crept upon Andre's face. "You will have to live through another one and reject Jade West."

"What will I say to her?" Tori ignored his irony. Her eyes grow and hands began to shake just at the imagine of that scene.

"Maybe the truth? That you're not interested in her that way." Andre's gaze sobered for a moment. It remained hard like steel.

"And what if she'll ask why I wanted to go out with her in the first place if I knew it was a case?" Why did this just sound like a break up? How did all of this even turn into something like that?

"As I said, telling the truth is always an option." Andre didn't back down. Tori suspected he got his own stings of remorse. After all Jade was his friend too and he had actively taken part in a massive lie she had been told. "Or you can just tell her that you don't know. You're just retarded like that, Jade thinks that about you anyway, so it won't come as a surprise." He added a little softer seeing as she leaned on the table looking truly miserable.

"Can you stop making fun of me finally?" She pushed her plate away, certain she wasn't going to force anymore food into herself.

"I haven't even truly begun yet, still haven't asked you how it feels to kiss the psycho…"

"TORI! I'm so happy for you!" The conversation was cut short, when shouting Cat appeared running towards them with her lunch. Tori only caught a blur of red hair when a body collided with her in an attempt to hug nearly pushing her off the bench. "For both of you. It's just amazing!"

"Cat? Stop it!" Tori tried to disentangle herself from redhead's arms too impatient today for her antics. "What are you talking about?" She sent a questioning glare at Andre, but he only shrugged signaling her that he also didn't know what was going on.

"I couldn't find Jade anywhere at the Full Moon Jam yesterday, so I called her this morning to ask what she's been up to." Cat was practically bouncing on the bench, beaming with happiness. "And she told me you two went there together. On a DATE!" She clapped her hands.

"What?! She told you… Did she say anything else?" Tori changed her position nervously, barely containing her hands from shaking Cat anxiously.

"No… She hanged up on me when I began telling her how great it is." Cat lost her enthusiasm for a second.

"At least she didn't change completely." Andre used a few moments of silence and murmured to Tori with a smile.

"But it's really, really amazing. Two girls that are always fighting, falling in love. Like in a movie or a book." Cat resumed her babbling. "I've always thought you have a great chemistry…"

"Love…? Chemistry…?" Tori repeated after her dumbfounded. "Cat, wait a sec. It's not…" She cut herself. Cat wasn't the one to keep a secret. Whatever the brunette told her would reach Jade without a doubt, like her opposite date with Beck. She had to be careful with her words. "I wouldn't be so… sure and serious about anything. It was just one date. I can't promise you it will work out." She stated uneasy, feeling Andre's heavy stare on her.

"Nonsense. You've always made things happened when you worked together." For once Cat was too cheerful to become offensive with someone else's rational thinking. Andre snorted again at that, despite Tori's glare.

"But…" The brunette was trying to think of anything that would stop Cat's daydreaming, but her already tired brain couldn't come up with a safe answer. Suddenly Robbie's appearance in Asphalt Café saved her.

"Oh no!" Cat's hands raised to cover her mouth in horror as she looked around in hurry and finally jumped under the table. Tori and Andre exchanged puzzled looks, none of them understanding redhead's behavior and bowed down toward her.

"What are you doing?" The brunette decided to ask her herself, because Andre didn't look like he really wanted to know and get involved in the process.

"Hiding away from Robbie." Cat answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why?" Tori signed silently, thankful that at least for the moment they left the topic of her and Jade alone.

"He told me he wanted to talk with me about 'Cow Wow'." Cat lowered her gaze and abruptly became miserable. "He's going to ask me to go with him!"

"So?" Small smile lifted corners of Tori's lips. Nearly everyone had realized by now that Robbie had a serious crush on Cat. The redhead was kind of leading him on, but Tori honestly wished them the best. They would make quite a good match.

"It's Robbie!" Cat looked at her with disbelief. "I'm not going to date him."

"Can't you just tell him that instead of hiding?" Andre rolled his eyes and crossed arms. "What is wrong with you girls and saying 'no'?" Tori shushed him, despise partly agreeing with what he'd said.

"It's Robbie." Cat repeated as it supposed to clear everything. "And we have enough new couples to talk about. You know Beck's going with Meredith?" She was back in a gossip mode.

"Beck and Meredith!" Tori finally managed to smile. After all she achieved something. Even Andre's grimace didn't spoil her feeling of accomplishment. But Cat's next words wiped her smile without hesitation.

"You're going with Jade, right? It's so cool both of them move on and are happy now. It makes me wish to fall in love too." Cat sighed dreamily.

Tori coughed a little to buy herself more time before answering that question. To be completely honest, Tori didn't even remember about the oncoming school dance. Full Moon Jam wasn't as big event as Cow Wow, but everybody had been living the preparation for that and no one really thought about what was coming next. Now, with only two weeks away, the dance probably was going to become the hot topic.

The brunette knew only that she was supposed to perform a new song with Andre, but she didn't plan on going with anyone yet. Actually she usually had been going to school's events alone, too preoccupied with their preparation to make it into a date. Cat's question and her behavior in general made her a little overwhelmed, but luckily Robbie saved her once again.

"Hey guys. Why are we seating under the table today?" His smiling head appeared next to Andre's.

"Aaaaa!" Cat shouted like she just saw something truly frightening, jumped out and ran away, before anyone could even react. Tori and Andre blinked at that with astonishment. Robbie stood up quickly, nearly hitting his head on the table.

"Cat, wait!" He tried to shouted after her, but she was long gone. "Sorry guys, I have to…" He sighed deeply and made a strange gesture with his hands, pointing at the direction where Cat had disappeared. His friends could only nod their heads before he left them too.

"That was… sad." Tori watched his retreating back for few seconds, before she turned back to Andre. "Maybe we could help…"

"NO WAY!" The boy stopped her firmly. "Didn't you learn your lesson yet? No more playing matchmaker for you."

"Yeah, you're right." She shook her head, trying to get Robbie and Cat out of it and concentrate on her personal mess. "You think Jade's expecting us to go to Cow Wow together?"

"Maybe." Andre shrugged. "Cat's probably gonna put that idea into her head anyway."

"What am I going to do?" Tori wondered aloud, but her words were more for herself than her best friend.

"Say no?" Andre answered nonetheless.

"But you heard Cat. Beck's going with Meredith. If I reject Jade she will end up as a very angry and lonely wallflower while watching her ex-boyfriend having fun." That thought left Tori feeling strangely uneasy. She did everything to avoid just that. It sounded as such a waste to let it happen now. She kind of promised herself to not only get Beck's back in this, but ensure Jade's happiness too.

"I begin to think we took a wrong perspective in my hamster plan. The one that definitely needs a pet is you." Andre looked at her like he was seriously thinking she has becoming mad. "You did realize we're talking about Jade West not a lost puppy, right? You can't exactly adopt her because no one else is insane enough to want a deadly psycho."

"Andre, can you stop with that, please?" His words also left her with strange uneasiness and unexpected protectiveness. "I got into this mess to show everybody she's not THAT bad and I succeeded so can you do me a favor and at least acknowledge that?"

"Okay, so maybe she's not a monster." He sighed deeply and looked her in the eyes. "But there are still quite a few reasons why Cat's beautiful love story can't come true. Firstly there is no love to begin with. Jade's probably just plotting something terrible and you don't even like girls that way. Whatever it is that's happening between you two is fake and can't end good. Going along with that won't help anybody in a long run."

"I know, Andre. I really do." Her eyes run away from his accusing glare. His rational thinking was really helpful, but sometimes she wished it wasn't that brutal. "I'm not gonna ask her out myself, but if she comes to me… I just don't know how to deal with it. And don't you dare telling me rejections are easy. I remember those times when you were stuck with a terrible girlfriend because you didn't know how to break up. It's extra hard for me. We're talking about Jade here. If I say no to her, I will likely go to Cow Wow with her scissors in my heart instead." She poked her ribcage with her finger to empathies her words.

"Can I say 'I told you it was a bad idea' now?" Andre answered her with a faint smile, making her growl in a process.

"Can we omit that part and concentrate on finding solution?"

"You can always borrow Cat's strategy and run away." The boy spread his arms in a half defeat, compensating his lack of ideas with jokes.

"That's exactly the last thing I should do. I still do want to befriend her. Even more after I finally got a chance to talk with her like a normal human being. I know this mess can easily end bad, but I have to try to work it out somehow. Avoiding Jade's not gonna help with that. It'll only make her angry or hurt or both. I can't do that."

* * *

It'd turned out she'd done exactly that. It wasn't like she'd intentionally decided to avoid her, just the sight of Jade was making her anxious and paralyzed. She knew she wasn't ready for confrontation. She still didn't figure out what she was supposed to tell Jade and after their baffling date she was expecting anything to happen. Nothing seemed too impossible at this point.

But if Tori had to be completely honest with herself, fear of angry Jade wasn't the only feeling accompanying her that day. The big irony wasn't lost on her. The longer she thought about it the surer she was that it was her best date. Even compared to Steven before he had turned out to be a cheater. She would have never ever connect this word with Jade West, but in some way she'd managed to make her feel… comfortable and safe. It had been the little things that Jade clearly had been trying to cover up with her snarky remarks. She had opened up to her, slightly reassured her nervousness, walked her home and accepted Tori's rejection to her kiss. She had given her space when Tori'd needed it and pushed forward when Tori was to anxious to. Actually she was main reason why it hadn't turn into a disaster. And that was the most touching thing. Not that the date had turned out alright after all, but that the frightening Jade West had tried to make it that way. Mind blowing and strangely warming.

Tori still didn't trust her intention (it's not like she would want to date Tori or something), but she couldn't stop a little smile that was forming on her lips whenever she thought about it. Extra points for Jade West for making a straight girl enjoy the date with her. Funny that nearly whole school was too terrified to even look at her.

By avoiding Jade, she had actually lost track of all of her friend in the process. The day was just turning more insane with every passing hour. Cat was running away from Robbie and clearly looking for Jade or Tori to discuss further their changing relationship. Robbie was chasing Cat and because of that facing Tori at every corner, who was trying really hard not to run into Jade and stay away from redhead's embarrassing questions. Instead she was looking for Beck to learn a little more about his plans towards Meredith, but her friend suddenly disappeared somewhere. After few failed attempts she had to accept that he was probably avoiding her. She wasn't quite sure why, but Andre just laughed at her, telling her that after she had gone out with his ex-girlfriend without even a warning after rejecting him, she should have excepted their relationship to become a little awkward. As for Andre himself he was the only one that didn't have to avoid anyone or didn't suffer being avoided. He just shook his head and laughed quietly every few minutes. The Cow Wow, became the main background for all of this. Because of their little fuss, by the end of the day everyone was talking about the oncoming school dance.

Tori wasn't proud of herself, but it didn't stop her from feeling relief when she basically run away from her classroom after the end of classes and got to her locker. Now she just needed to get her things and left, before…

"Vega!" Well-known voice startled her, making her drop her books.

"Jade. Hi!" She sent a force smile at her, before kneeling down to gather her book. Her hands were shaking clumsily, while she tried to avoid looking at the approaching Goth. Jade's steps were light and stable, just as predator sneaking up towards its prey. She was completely silent until Tori raised to her feet and met her gaze preparing for the worst.

"We're going to the Cow Wow." She stated flatly, making Tori blink in surprise.

"You mean…" She stuttered. "Are you asking me out?" She looked at the Goth a little closely, but nothing betrayed her intention. Her expression was unreadable and her arms were defensively crossed.

"Of course no, I hate you" She hissed quickly, but then shuffled her legs uneasily. "But if you ask me out, maybe I'll say yes." Tori blinked again at that. What?

"But… I… You…" She shook her head slightly like she was hoping to get a better grasp of situation. "That doesn't even make sense!"

Jade ignored her confusion and outburst, watching her narrowly with the same stone face.

"Are you avoiding me?" Her voice was so calm, to the point of being truly scary. Tori shuddered involuntarily. Ready or not it was the time to face the music.

"No, of course no. Why would I? It just… this day is so crazy. You see Cat and Robbie, right? They're making quite a mess chasing each other around." She tried to laugh, but Jade was watching her like a statue, totally freaking her out. She evidently didn't buy it, but didn't interrupt Tori either so the brunette quickly decided to change the subject. "And about that dance…" She began, but still couldn't come up with the right words. That was the right time to reject her, even if she wasn't sure there was any question for her to answer in a first place. "I…" She coughed, her throat suddenly becoming dry. She had to be direct, but gentle. Oh God… Jade's gonna be so mad. Even if all of this was just a mystification for her too, no one's taking rejection well. And she would end up completely alone at The Cow Wow, watching Beck and Meredith and maybe Cat and Robbie. That was just… They could have fun together, just like at Full Moon Jam. But the second DATE was a really bad idea and Jade would be expecting kissing and…

"Vega!" Quiet, but stern voice stopped her train of thoughts.

"Hmm?" She nervously found Jade's gaze.

"You're hyperventilating." The Goth sighed deeply and uncrossed her arms. Her posture relaxed slightly calming Tori in a process too. "Listen… Do you know Chase and Dylan? They're from advance drama class."

"Umm… Yeah" Tori nodded carefully, taken aback by strange change of topic. Was she missing on something or was Jade completely not making sense today?

"Amber and Chloe for our music class? Or Tony and Jack? You have English with them." Jade continued her counting, making Tori more and more lost.

"Yes, I know all of them, but…" Suddenly Tori's eyes widened when she realized what they have in common, but it still didn't exactly explain where Jade was going with this.

"It's not like we're gonna be the only same-sex pair at the dance. It's an art school. No one's gonna care. If you're still not at ease with all of that…" Jade made a circle gesture with her hand and shrugged. She looked indifferent, but Tori knew she was doing it again. She was trying to make her feel comfortable. The brunette felt something warm spreading through her chest.

"No, I'm not concerned about anyone's thoughts." I'd actually wanted all of them to witness this in a first place. "But I think it's still quite shocking, because you know… you and me?" She laughed timidly. She should have been trying to turn this conversation around and stop this madness, but couldn't even concentrate on anything, when Jade softly smiled back at her. It was so new, so… special. Almost too tempting to keep. Then her eyes landed on Jade's lips, making her own tingle in a process. She had been so freaked out with just occurrence of their kiss that she hadn't even spent one thought on how it was. And now, when she was supposed to reverse this mess, the only thought that accidently popped out in her mind was 'her lips are so soft and taste like mint'.

"Yeah, strange, but your idea? Maybe it wasn't THAT bad." The Goth smirked deviously, coming a little closer towards Tori, invading her personal space.

"My-my-my idea?" Tori swallowed hardly, hitting her back into her locker and maneuvering her books that they created a barrier between Jade and her. They weren't that close, but it was enough for Tori to smell Jade's weak, fresh scent and became even more nervous.

"For us to spent a little more time together. Maybe once in a while you actually are right." Jade smirk grew bigger.

"I-I-I guess…"

"But don't feel too safe because of that. I still have my scissors with me. It's gonna be a public event, don't you dare making too much of loser out of yourself. Am I clear?" The typical, cruel sparkle was back in her eyes.

"But…"

"No 'buts' in this, Vega! When you going out with someone as hot as me, you should at least look half decent yourself." Jade crossed her arms and took a step back, lost in her thoughts. "Our outfits should kinda match. Are you going to wear a dress?" Finally the Goth gave Tori a chance to say something. Her eyes were strangely nervous for such a trivial question.

"I… But… Jade…" Tori could only stare at her helplessly. What had just happened here? Jade had basically manipulated her to go out with her and even presented the whole thing as Tori's own idea. But why? And more importantly how could she get out of this?

"Seriously Vega, can you fucking stop making me repeat myself? I said I will go to the stupid dance with you. Get over one of those idiotic breakdowns of yours and concentrate on more important things." Jade growled. She was tense and visibly angry, but she couldn't hide all signs of her nervousness. Tori once again hit her locker with her back, taken aback by both fear and confusion.

"Ok..." She murmured dumbfounded, before her brain had registered what her mouth just did. Jade relaxed. Corners of her lips raised slightly, despise her still angry glare. She was about to say something when the loud, wild shout interrupted their conversation. If Jade wasn't standing in front of her, Tori would think that it was her. The shout was frightening enough to made her drop her books once again, but thankfully Jade caught them this time before they could hit a floor.

Cat appeared around the cornered literally fuming. She took few quick steps and stopped in front of Tori and Jade.

"GABRIELLA!" She roared and stomped away.

"What was that about?" Tori watched her leave with wide eyes. Thanks to Cat she managed to hit her back on her locker for the third time. She began to feel a bruise forming there. First her scratched face, next her cut finger and now her aching back. Dating Jade's definitely gonna kill her, even indirectly.

"I have no idea, but it was impressive." Jade answered her with a smile, a little paler then she was before. "Who knows our small kitten's hiding a tiger inside."

"We should probably check on her." The brunette blurted out quickly, sensing her chance to get away from her earlier conversation with Jade. She didn't wait for the respond, but caught sight of the Goth shaking her head with irritation, nevertheless following her anyway.

* * *

"This is completely beyond me. How on earth did you manage to accidently agree to go out with someone? And don't try to give me that 'it just happened' excuse again." Andre was watching her closely from the couch as she was pouring them drinks in the kitchen.

"It's even better." Tori laughed humorlessly. "Officially I'm the one that asked. She just agreed graciously."

"You're killing me here, but it actually sounds a lot like Jade." Andre took his drink from her as she joined him on the couch in her living room.

"But there is one good news after all, I did a little damage control." Honestly she still wasn't quite sure if this was a damage control indeed or just another problem she'd gotten herself involved with. "Cat's going with us. She took really bad the news about Robbie going with some else and doesn't want to go with any of the other guys. There is no one to drive her there, so we're taking her."

"What about her brother? She said once that he got his license back?" Andre frowned a little.

"Umm… She said his friend made him a pretty, new one." Tori sent him a pointed look, feeling a little disturbed as always when Cat's brother was mentioned. "Never mind, she will have to spend some time with us, so I hope that this whole date won't look so serious."

"Tori, it's still a date. Even if it turns out to be fake for both sides, Jade at least likes girls this way."

"It's not that hard to pretend." She really tried to sound smooth, but thoughts of kissing Jade were nagging her at the back of the mind. This time she can't run away from it and the Goth had kind of promised her that. "I'm an actress. I played a few love interests, even with people I dislike. It's like one of Sikowitz's exercises."

"Jade would so kill you for calling her that." Andre shook his head at her, making her constant feeling of guilt rise drastically.

"And she has every right to do it!" She threw her hands in the air dramatically and then fell deeper into the couch. Such a mess. But there was no way to get out of it now without causing a lot of damages. Maybe she should just go with the flow and see what were Jade's intentions after all? "Can we please stop talking about this now? It was a crazy day and I'm completely emotionally and intellectually drained. Let just watch TV as we were planning to." She pointed at her TV with a gesture, while rubbing her forehead. She was beginning to develop a headache from all this stress.

"As you wish." Andre grabbed a remote and sent her a skeptical glare. "Maybe they have some documentary like 'Assertiveness for dummies' or 'The secret art of saying no'.

* * *

 **AN:** I'm not planning to continue with every episodes as they go, but this one actually makes sense for the story, so I decided to keep it. You probably notice there is a lot of Andre in this story for now as he kind of became Tori's partner in crime. I quite enjoy writing him, so I hope you don't mind. I can promise a lot of Jori to come. Thanks for reviews and generally being so nice to me, you are great, guys.


	5. Something to miss

**AN:** I was kinda planning to finish this chapter two weeks ago, but life's happened. I have so much work to do that I don't even know where to begin with. I believe after November it'll get quite better, but for now I can't promise any date for the next update, just that I'm only getting started and definitely won't abandon this story any time soon.

* * *

The following few days were awkward and strange, but luckily not as awkward and strange as they possibly could be. Tori'd promised herself not to avoid Jade again, no matter how freaked out she felt, and she was bravely keeping that promise. At the beginning she had been completely taken aback by the situation, not knowing what to do with herself whenever she'd seen her. She had expected things to change somehow and to be tormented with all of this by the Goth. Jade had to notice by now how anxious she was. She's always loved to make her miserable and now she had a perfect weapon. Back then Tori suspected it was partly a reason why the Goth was carrying on with the idea of them dating. But to her surprise nothing like this happened. She didn't even need to avoid her, because Jade kind of did this to her.

It wasn't anything big in particular, but when you're arguing with someone on daily basic it's hard not to notice when it stops suddenly. There was no mocking, no violence and no cruel jokes. Their interaction was usually only inside their little group of friends and Jade had never personally approached the subject of the Cow Wow. Firstly it had unsettled Tori even more, but after few days when nothing drastic happened she finally believed that Jade wasn't plotting anything just… giving her space. It was strange thought because it would mean that the Goth was being kind of nice to her. Something she had never done before without a gain. But now everything was so unprecedented that maybe even that was possible.

Nevertheless if it was the case of not, it worked. Slowly Tori was calming down. Her conversation with Jade stopped being so stiff and she even begun smiling at the Goth and her other, rather friendly side. She had mentioned it once. They had been paired up together to do the exercise in one of Sikowitz's class and Tori had completely messed it up. But Jade hadn't hit her or yell at her. She'd just rolled her eyes and sighed deeply. Tori couldn't help but to ask Jade why she was so okay with it. The answer was 'If you're going to be my date at the school dance you can't go with black eyes. You've gotten yourself enough scars already'. So maybe something had changed, just once again not in the way anyone would have expected.

As Tori was learning to live with the thoughts of kissing Jade West in the near future (and she still didn't come to terms with that) she quickly noticed there was another, even bigger problem growing: Cat. Andre had made Tori promise him solemnly that she would stay out of it, but it was quite difficult when the fuming redhead was following her around talking about only two things: Tori's 'love story' with Jade and Robbie's stupid crush on Gabriella. Hard to say which one was worse or damaged their group's dynamic more, if at that point they could even call it a group anymore. Beck was still M.I.A for most of the time. Cat was making a scene or running away whenever she saw Robbie and he, completely confused, was chasing her around. Andre had been just sending all of them dirty looks, but when this madness kept on increasing everyday he withdrew from interaction with them and was running away just like Cat whenever the Cow Wow was mentioned. To be honest Tori hadn't done it easy on him too. She had been bugging him with her worries so much that finally he basically had yelled at her to get herself together.

So she did. She tried to establish some kind of understanding between herself and Jade and contain Cat's emotional swings a little. Thanks to that she ended up in the mall, shopping with the two of them three days before the dance. It was Cat's idea of course. She needed to buy few new things for the Cowboy-Hawaii motive and had nagged Tori until she had agreed to join her. How she had persuaded Jade to do this was still a mystery to the brunette, nonetheless the very cynic and grumpy Goth accompanying them walking from shop to shop.

"…and then the unicorn ate a cake and everyone became sad." Cat was babbling happily the whole time about some cartoon or something of that kind. Tori didn't even try to listen to her, however she kept up with her pace and didn't allow herself to be stuck in the back with Jade. Their relationship got a little better, but she still was dreading being alone with her.

"Sometimes I'm suspecting you're smoking something." Jade murmured clearly irritated from behind them, shuffling her legs like she was really ready to leave at any moment.

Tori smiled briefly at her comment, but didn't interrupt another part of Cat's unicorn story. Even if the redhead heard Jade too, she didn't show it in any way. At least she wasn't talking about Gabriella or them, so Tori wouldn't dare to disturb her.

"Oh, I love that store!" Cat stopped suddenly and pointed at the big clothes shop before them. Before her two friends could even react, she enthusiastically skipped forward urging them to follow her. "Are you two looking for anything specific?" She asked them with a smile and hands already full of dresses and blouses.

"I think I'll just wear last year's stuff. I'm completely broke now." Tori sighed deeply with a little embarrassment at the fact she had already used all of her saving for that month. She spotted few pretty things, but the prices were making her head spin.

"I need a skirt. Preferably not pink." Jade murmured, watching bright colours surrounding her from every side with a pure hatred.

"Oh, so you can help me for now and then we will find a lovely skirt for Jade and maybe a little cheaper shop for you, Tori." Their gloomy mood couldn't disturb Cat's optimism when she nearly bounced on her feet with happiness, hugging the clothes she was holding.

The 'helping' Cat had mentioned quickly turned into Tori's dragging her chosen dresses after her and Jade's disappearing somewhere without a word. For once the brunette would really prefer to spend this time with the Goth instead of being Cat's butler, but as a helpful friend she had always tried to be, she followed the redhead without any complain and gave her every advise she needed. After a really long twenty or so minutes Cat decided it was time to try the clothes she chose. She went looking for a changing room leaving Tori with a task to find Jade and bring her there. The brunette could only grumble at that.

She looked around realizing that the Goth really disappeared for some time. She hadn't seen her since the moment they'd entered the shop. Had she just decided to leave after all? Tori knew she had to make sure, so she went deeper into the store, looking around carefully. The longer she looked for her, the more she was feeling like someone was watching her. Every nerve on her body was screaming in anticipation, making her feel like she was in a horror movie instead of the shop with pretty flowers dresses. And then…

"Buuu!" Her heart nearly stopped and she literally jumped few feet into air when Jade popped out behind the pant's section with a frightening, psychotic whisper.

"Oh my…" was the only thing that got through Tori's clenched teeth. The brunette's eyes were twice their normal size, and one of her hands covered her heart like she wanted to protect it from stopping suddenly.

"You're just making it too easy for me, Vega." Jade laughed at her, but it wasn't completely cruel, more like the laugh of someone who just made a perfect joke.

"I was thinking you want me alive at the Cow Wow." Tori managed to speak finally, straightening up and releasing a random T-shirt she was gripping with her other hand unconsciously.

"I told you Vega, I can't have you feeling too safe." The Goth just smirked at her, but then suddenly lower her voice. "But it was more fun when you were fighting back."

"What do you mean?" Tori looked at her closely. There were still clothes rack with pants between them, so she felt safe enough to hold conversation with Jade alone.

"Are you afraid of me Vega?" Jade asked bluntly, crossing her arms. Her expression was completely stone and unreadable, so Tori couldn't tell if it was a sign of anger or defensiveness.

The question was quite ironic after what had happened just a seconds ago, but the brunette knew it wasn't about that. It was about her constants freaking outs and awkwardness around Jade from last week and a half. She didn't know how to answer that, she wasn't even sure if she wanted to try. Yes, she was afraid, but it was entirely past the stage of just being scared of Jade's suffocating her. She was terrified of the mess she accidently created that seemed to affect all of their friends. Beck was angry, Andre was disappointed, Cat's going to be both of that if the truth comes to light and Jade…

"Are you seriously asking me that after nearly giving me a heart attack a moment ago?" She finally replied evasively, pushing her anxiety away from her mind. For a brief second she saw something like disappointment in Jade's eyes. "Cat wants us to help her choose the perfect dress." She added, quickly changing subject, before the Goth could say anything. She pointed at the changing rooms to emphasize it.

"So go help her." Jade replied sharply, becoming even more grumpy than usual.

"She wants both of us to help." Tori could only sigh deeply, knowing that it was going to be a really hard task to complete. "Where did you disappear anyway?"

"Not your business, Vega." She wasn't surprised to hear another cold remark.

"Come on, she's waiting for us." She tried to gesture for her to move, but Jade was still like a statue.

"I don't want to" was her simple reply.

Tori sighed once again. She knew it was her fault the Goth was in such a bad mood, so she decided to change her approach and calm her somehow.

"Please?" She pleaded through the slightly clenched teeth. She had never liked the idea of asking something from Jade. It couldn't end good for her.

Just as she suspected her plea made the Goth finally smile slightly.

"Beg for it, Vega." She said with a devious gleam in her eyes.

"What?! Why?" This time Tori crossed her arms. Okay, she was trying to negotiate with her, but wasn't willing to go THAT far. "No way. You're not even doing this for me, but Cat. She's your friend."

Jade didn't respond to that. She just kept on staring at Tori and smirking. The brunette didn't break her gaze, so they stood like that in absolute silence for few moments. Finally Tori backed down and broke the silence.

"You're just messing around with me again?" She wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement.

"Yes." Jade answered shortly nonetheless.

"Nearly giving me a heart attack wasn't enough for you?"

"No." Another short reply.

"Can you stop this?" Tori was slowly losing her patience.

"No."

"Can we just finally join Cat?"

"No."

"Jade! You're supposed to be a screenwriter one day, right? Can you at least try to give me not monosyllabic answers?" Tori gritted her teeth and clenched her fist with irritation. Jade's smirk grew twice its size.

"No."

"Ugh!" Tori rubbed her forehead with a loud, defeated groan.

"It's not my fault you're asking the yes or no questions." Jade came closer to her, as much as the clothes rack allowed (thanks God for that), and said slyly.

That was quite enough for Tori, she sent the Goth a hard glare, got around the rack, grabbed Jade's wrist and began dragging her towards the changing room. It wasn't as hard as it sounded, because the girl was following her quite willingly, laughing the whole time. She stopped when they reached their destination, let Jade go and put her hands on her hips.

"Was it really that hard?" She asked still quite angry.

"Nah, but only because I let you do this." Jade shrugged indifferently, but emphasized the end of her sentence anyway.

Tori just shook her head at her irrational need to prove her domination over the situation and concentrated on finding the redhead.

"Cat?! We're here." She shouted towards the changing rooms.

"Yay, give me a sec. I'll put on my favorite one." Came a quick reply from one of the closest ones.

"Okay." Tori shouted back and then she was left in the silence, waiting with Jade.

She stole a glance at the Goth that threw herself at the black stool in the corner.

"So, Vega" Jade began, sitting more comfortably. "You dragged me here, so now entertain me while we're waiting." She smiled slightly. It wasn't really friendly, but at least it wasn't cruel or devious.

"Umm…" Tori fidgeted nervously. That situation was exactly what she tried to avoid, but maybe talking was a better solution than awkward silence. Jade had to sense that. "What have you been up to, lately?" She played with her hands anxiously, realizing that indeed she was completely out of date when it came to what was going on with Jade recently.

"I said 'entertain me' not 'bore me to death with small talks'." The Goth rolled her eyes at that, but Tori wouldn't let her throw her off the track.

"Did you get your car back from your step-mother?" She pushed on knowing that she found a perfect subject. Jade couldn't laugh at that. It was really practical and important question. After all the Goth supposed to drive her and Cat to the Cow Wow, the fact if she had a car was kind of crucial.

"Yeah, took it back from the Fourth yesterday." Jade spited out with clear hatred.

"The fourth?" Tori looked at her closely like always curious and self-conscious whenever topic of Jade's family came up. "You don't like your step-mother very much." She observed carefully.

"I don't think there is a child insane enough to like their fourth step-mother." Jade just snorted at that.

"Why?" Tori raised her brows in question. She had read enough fairytales as a child to knew that step-mothers weren't really loved in general, but not everyone could be that bad. She was talking with Jade after all. She could dislike her just because she was Jade.

"Because not every family is perfect as yours, princess." The Goth sent her an irritated, hard glare. "When you get a new step-mother every fucking Christmas, you stop even trying to learn their names and definitively don't become attached to them."

And then it occurred to Tori that maybe Jade's step-mothers had been in fact really likeable. That maybe the Goth had liked them. But all of them had left her at one point.

"God… That's just so…" She whispered, looking for the right word.

"If you going to say 'interesting', I promise you, I'll strangle you with that disgusting pink socks on sale." Jade growled at her.

"No. I was about to say 'terrible'. You're right about me, I can't even imagine how hard it has to be to live in a family like that. Your father. It's really not sensible of him to put you through something like that." Tori answered her softly but honestly. If she was talking to anyone but Jade she would probably hug them by now, but the Goth was the opposite of touchy-feely, at least when it came to her.

"Not sensible?" Jade snorted at that like she just heard a really good joke. "He's just an egotistical, cynical asshole. And his taste in women is getting worse with every year. His wives are just getting younger and stupider. The next one's probably gonna be my year and have half of my IQ. Maybe I would be able to steel her from him. That would be quite a plot twist." Her laugh was humorless, when she turned her face away from Tori.

The brunette wanted to hug her even more, despise very disturbing mental image of Jade's hitting on her next step-mother. She took a cautious step closer, not sure what to do with herself or what to say. It turned out, she never got a chance to figurate it out, because Cat remained them of her existence with a happy giggle.

"So? What do you think?" She left changing room in a red dress, swirling around and beaming with joy.

The abrupt change in the atmosphere from extremely heavy to full of rainbow made Tori blinked in surprise. She needed a second to remember where she was and why she came here in a first place. Jade recovered faster and didn't lose a moment to snort and roll her eyes.

"It's really pretty, Cat." Tori quickly saved a day, when Cat's eyes began to water at the lack of their reaction. "It fits you perfectly."

"You think so?" Bright smile returned to Cat's lips when she looked at the brunette. "Am I cute enough? Cuter than Gabriella?"

Tori scratched her head at that. To be honest, she wasn't even sure which Gabriella they were talking about the whole time. There were at least five girls named that in their school.

"Don't worry, Cat. We can always make Gabriella uglier." The scissors appeared in Jade's hand out of nowhere. She began playing with them, cutting the air and smiling cruelly. Tori just looked at her with wide eyes, while Cat clapped enthusiastically.

"Thank you, Jade." She replied innocently. Tori wasn't even sure if the redhead was fully aware what the Goth had just implied.

"Then it's settled. Grab your dress and we're leaving finally." Jade stood up and waved at them to hurry up.

"But..." Cat looked at her anxiously. "I have five more dresses to show you."

"No, you don't." Jade cut her sharply.

"Yes, she does." Tori joined their argument, because Cat didn't look like she was going to defend herself. The redhead's lips form a little pout. She looked completely torn, watching her two friends staring at each other firmly. Jade's arms crossed with passive-aggressive attitude and Tori's hands gripping at her hips in irritation.

"So, umm… guys?" Cat tried to stop their staring contest, but was totally ignored. She shifted her weight from one foot to another. "I'll just go put on another one." She pointed at the changing room carefully.

"NO!" Jade snapped at her finally looking away from Tori, who reacted just as rapidly.

"Yes." And they were back to glaring at each other with conflicted Cat in the middle gulping nervously.

"I told you Vega, don't anticipate I'll go easy on you now." The Goth snorted, swirling her scissors in the air in warning. She took a step closer toward Tori, looking ready for a fight.

"And what are you gonna do?" The brunette's abrupt confidence surprised even her. "Make me uglier like Gabriella? I'm your date, remember that." She smiled boldly.

She managed to stop Jade in her track and made her look at her suspiciously. Tori couldn't blame her for this distrust. After all there she was, joking about their date, the same topic she had been running away that whole time. But it… felt good. To talk about this like it was something completely normal, like they really were just two girls going out together. Not a bomb that was about to explode soon.

Jade was still quite stunned, but Tori knew she was about to recover in a few seconds and one little joke wasn't enough to make her back down, so she quickly used a time she had left, before that.

"Listen, just give Cat few more minutes. Let her try at least two of those dresses. We came here to shop. You can't rush us all the time." She raised her hands in an arbitral way.

"Yes, just a second Jade and we will buy you new, shiny scissors." Cat shook her head few times with a smile and disappeared quickly.

"You better hurry!" The Goth shouted after her and sat down plump on the stool again. She sent Tori a stubborn glare. "I'm only letting you stay, because I'm okay with that." She emphasized.

"Of course you are." The brunette smiled softly at that. It was another ridiculous thing about Jade: she ALWAYS had to have the last word. And she would never let anybody else gain control over the situation.

But it actually had never really stopped Tori from getting her way with Jade when she needed something badly. The Goth could be the queen of manipulation, but to be honest Tori had quite an experience in making her do things. So why was she so scared of her now? Why was she so lost? Jade was right, she just stopped fighting back at some point.

She fixed the glance at the other girl, sitting with crossed arms and scowls on her face and for once she wasn't even slightly anxious about what was going to happen. It was still Jade. Manipulative, stubborn, cunning, possessive and violent, but the same as always and she had been dealing with her for so long. She could deal with that too. As she kept looking at her as she was sending murdering glares at changing room in a silent protest the thought popped up in her mind that it was in fact quite cute. How much the Goth tried to show them they didn't win. Her smile grow subconsciously at that.

If someone saw them right now, they would probably look pretty funny or strange. The one incredibly crossed and the other smiling at her blissfully. Both in absolute silence that didn't even get a chance to be broke. Cat kept her promise to make it as quick as possible. After only a few moments she emerged out of changing room in a next dress and bombarded them with question connected with her being prettier than Gabriella. Tori tried to be as helpful as possible and go along with Cat hot-and-cold attitude towards Robbie, but after another 'do you think he'll like her more?' she couldn't stand it anymore.

"Why do you even care? You ran away from him." She finally fixated Cat with serious look.

"I ran away, because I thought he wanted to ask me out." The redhead explained in a same obvious tone like always. "It's Robbie, I'm not going to date him."

"So why can't you let him date someone else?" Tori pushed on. She stole a glance at Jade, but the Goth didn't do any move to stop their growing argument. She was quite done with being mad already and exchanged it for being bored beyond belief instead.

"Because he loves ME." Cat articulated the last word with surprising strength.

"Don't you think it's a little… umm… selfish for you to keep him hanging with unrequested love?" This time the brunette allowed her voice to be a little more gentle, feeling she touched the sensitive topic and not wanting to cause a scene.

"But he's one of my best friends…" Despise Tori's efforts Cat saddened visibly. Her lower lip twitched dangerously.

"Disgusting" Jade cut in flatly.

"He's always there for me when I need him." The redhead carried on, ignoring the interruption. "I don't want to…" She bit her lips, not looking at Tori who sighed deeply.

"Cat, I get it. I really do. You don't want to lose him." Tori smiled at her sympathetically, but it quickly changed into a mischievous smirk. "But if you care about him so much, why don't you just give him a chance? You've worked great as friends so far, maybe there is a potential for something more too."

"That's even more disgusting." Jade sent her a judging glare.

"But… Robbie?" Cat's eyes fluttered and her lips twitched again. She looked really stressed and hesitant at the same time. "I have never thought about him that way…"

"Exactly!" Tori didn't even let her finish, interrupting enthusiastically. "Maybe you should. Think about it. Maybe you'll see him in a different light?" She shifted her weight from one foot to another, gesticulating vividly.

"But if we go out and it doesn't work, we will never be fully able to go back to being just friends." Cat's dramatic sigh finally shut Tori up for a second. Her eyes subconsciously running towards Jade who luckily didn't notice her sudden discomfort.

Before she could pull herself together, Cat disappeared in a changing room, murmuring something to herself softly.

"But if it works out, you can gain so much more." The brunette shouted after her quite unconvincingly. She didn't get any respond.

"You're making me physically sick." Jade concluded with a grimace, drawing Tori's attention more toward herself.

"Can you stop with that? I'm trying to help here." The brunette sudden frustration sneaked into her voice. "Don't you want them to be happy? I know that somewhere deep in your dark, twisted… heart or whatever it is that pumping blood in your body, you care for both of them." She said challengingly, anticipating a quick denial, but meeting with a surprising nod.

"And that's exactly why I don't want them to be together." Jade answered honestly, catching Tori completely off guard.

"But it's a perfect match. They have known each other for years. They understand each other, watch each other's backs and complete each other thoroughly." She counted, watching Jade curiously.

"Congratulation, Vega. You aren't absolutely blind, just have the worst deduction skill ever." Jade rolled her eyes and began playing with her PearPhone, looking like this discussion was boring her deeply. "That's why they're friends. Just friends"

"But maybe there is a chance for something more. A lot of the most beautiful love stories began with a friendship." Tori fixated her with a firm glare, not letting Jade's attitude get to her.

"You see my dear Vega, the most prudish of them all, there is this little thing called sexual attraction. It's quite an important factor in dating someone." She looked at Tori briefly, but after seeing her stone expression she added with a devious smirk: "You get it or should I have the growing up talk with you about meeting someone special?"

"No, thank you for your useful sarcasm." Tori shook her in resignation, despise a little smirk that turned corners of her lips up at those smartass remarks. "Attraction can come with time. That's why I told her to think about it first. And it's one of the factors, but definitively not the most important one. What about trust? About understanding?" She pointed confidently.

"The trust is overrated. You shouldn't trust anybody to begin with." Jade smiled indifferently at her PearPhone, tapping it lightly. "It has nothing to do with falling in love. It may happen or may not. You don't have control over it."

"Right" Tori began slowly, considering Jade's words carefully. She really wasn't prepared for such a serious talk. "But love at the first sight never really happens so if you give it a chance…"

"It may never happen, like I said. And you would be stuck in a pointless, dead relationship." The Goth finally met her eyes with blank expression. "And what if then you meet someone that will burn your insides with one glance? Big drama guaranteed."

"It's really not all about attraction. You still have a choice. Crushes can pass and if you're in a stable, working relationship…" Tori tried to gain control over this discussion again, but Jade interrupted her another time.

"If it was that simple…" She squeezed her PearPhone tightly. "Whatever. You're doomed either way. Love sucks."

"Maybe, but it still doesn't explain why Cat shouldn't consider giving Robbie a chance and doesn't make it an unresolved situation. Falling in love may not be our choice, but we can still decide if we want to act upon those feelings or not." Tori didn't even notice as she skipped most of the distance between them and was hovering above sitting Jade, who once again made a complete mess in her mind. She wasn't so sure about her own arguments anymore. To be honest she had never given a topic so much thoughts, but was too focused on making Robbie and Cat happy to back down.

"Yeah, we can always bury ourselves in misery." Jade rolled her eyes, but didn't look irritated with their lack of consensus. "If you really think it's all that simple, then the answer is no."

"The answer to what?" Tori blinked surprised by the quite random change in a direction of their conversation.

"To the last question in your stupid game." The Goth's voice became softer, barely above the whisper, but still kept a strong tone. "You have never been in love."

Tori bit her lips at that, not knowing how to react. She didn't know why Jade hadn't answered her then and what all of this actually meant, but she had a feeling she was walking on the thin ice. It looked like a topic of love was quite sensitive to Jade and considering everything they had just talked about, maybe that had been exactly what had happened to her and Beck. Maybe he had fallen in love with someone else and was stuck with jealous Jade, making both of them completely miserable. But if that was true, why he still didn't begin a relationship with that other girl? Especially now, when Tori took care of Jade. It couldn't be Meredith, so… what has happened? If Beck wasn't avoiding her like a contagious disease she would question him about their break-up more.

"I umm…" She finally realized, she had to reacted to that statement somehow. She hadn't thought about it so much when she had come out with this question on their date, but now it felt so mature and serious. "I guess no, but it still doesn't mean I'm just gonna wake up one day and throw myself at someone like an animal without a conscious thought." She tried to loosen up the mood with a joke.

"Of course, no. We've established already you're an absolute prude. You're probably just gonna do a lot of idiotic, romantic nonsense like serenading someone in front of the whole school." Jade rolled her eyes at her, but it didn't stop her from smiling widely. Tori couldn't contain her own smile. That had really sounded like something she would do.

Both of them kept smiling and Tori shook her head slightly at the calm atmosphere surrounding them. She couldn't remember last time when they had had the heated argument like that. Jade had been right earlier, she really had stopped fighting back, tiptoeing carefully around Jade instead. And she was so tired and confused by this, that she just realized how much she missed the challenging way they had been interacting before. The list of Jade's flaws could be nearly endless, but at least Tori never could said she was boring and after so much time spent on trying to survive their day-to-day interactions she had gotten used to it.

"Tori? Jade? Can I… umm… come out now?" Cat's weak voice once again broke their content silence.

Tori quickly looked towards the changing room surprise a little by the redhead's hesitation.

"Of course, we're waiting. If you're ready, come out." She shouted back.

Jade chuckled at her respond and join the conversation with a smirk.

"Yeah, come out, Cat. Show Tori how to do this without pissing your pants." The double meaning behind her smile hit Tori and made her crossed her arms with a deep sigh.

"I told you already I'm not scared of…" She just shook her head at Jade's raised brow. "Whatever. Come on, Cat." She tried to sounded encouraging.

After few second the redhead appeared before them clearly startled, nervously balancing on her feet.

"Are you sure I'm not interrupting you? I have bad experience with being involved with Jade's love life" She asked apprehensively, playing with the hem of the yellow dress she was trying.

Tori, uncertain what the girl was talking about, sent Jade a suspicious look. Whatever it was about, the Goth had had to do something to traumatize her… again.

"Cat" Jade only growled with irritation, looking anything but apologetic. "Beck and I promised you already that we will never make you a part of one of our arguments. And I don't get it, why you make such a big deal out of this. I did take you to nurse after you fainted that one time." She emphasized like it should finally end the case, but Tori doubted she had ever truly apologized.

The redhead nodded her head unconvincingly at that and didn't say anything else. Tori let it go too. She still didn't know for sure what they had been talking about and she didn't really want to get involved. She stated her opinion on the dress instead. They kept it brief this time. No more talking about Robbie, Gabriella or Cow Wow. To Jade's clear satisfaction few minutes later the three of them left changing room with the red dress Cat had tried first. They had been waiting to pay for it, when the redhead spotted the beautiful pink cowboy hat.

"Look, it's so pretty." She beamed happily. "But I have one for myself already." Her expression fell instantly.

"Yeah, it's great." Tori took the hat and looked at it closely.

"Yay, you should buy it Tori. It looks perfect on you." Cat retrieved her enthusiasm as she took the hat from for and put it on her head.

"I don't know, Cat." The brunette removed it and grimaced at the price tag. "I'm totally broke lately. I think, I'll really just use last year stuff." She turned the hat around with regret.

"But Tori!" Cat pouted at her, once again putting the hat at her head and dragging her towards the mirror. The brunette answered her with a deep sigh. Yes, the hat was pretty, but she had already bought few things this month and was completely out of money.

"I can borrow you money for it." Jade joined them with emotionless voice, making both girls look at her like she had grown the second head. "What? You're looking nearly decent in it." She answered their surprised looks defensively.

"I… I can't take something like that from you." Tori was completely taken aback, now looking at the hat like it was about to explode in her hands.

"You're not taking anything. I'm borrowing you money." Jade growled at her warningly, already irritated with their behavior.

"That's…" Tori blinked twice. "That's a trap right? You want something from me."

"I can already get whatever I want from you, Vega." Jade smirked deviously, making Tori take an unconscious step back. She didn't get more into the topic of their game with Cat listening, but took the hat from Tori instead. "But I think I can use that too. We're buying it and leaving this damn store finally. If you have something to complain about Vega, you can do this after I get myself a coffee." With that she turned around firmly and walked away, dragging still stunned Cat with her.


	6. Damage control

**AN:** Good news: I'm alive (if anyone wondered) and back with a new chapter. Bad news: my life finally is becoming a little less of a mess, but I can't promise any date for the next update. It shouldn't be THAT long, but I really can't promise anything more specific. So sorry (and thank you) to all that are reading and waiting for this story.

Damage control? Damage control my ass! It looked like recently all Tori's ideas were destined to backfire at her without mercy. She didn't exactly regret taking Cat with them, she was too nice for that, and helping a friend have been always the second nature to her, but her hopes that it would make going out with Jade less awkward stayed completely unanswered. Okay, it was different awkward, but they didn't even arrive at the school yet and things already had been turning into a disaster.

Jade had picked up Cat first and by the time they arrived at Tori's she was pissed beyond belief and ready to commit a murder, preferably on her redhead friend. The only thing keeping Cat alive was the fact that the Goth had to held a steering wheel and couldn't take out her scissors.

It turned out that in the middle of their drive Cat came to conclusion that it was pretty lame that Robbie was going to dance with Gabriella and she was going alone. Her strange jealousy reached completely new level and she began freaking out that maybe she shouldn't go at all or have to find someone quickly at the dance. Tori tried to knock some sense into her and at the same time make Jade calm down, but it was hard to say which target was more impossible to achieve.

It was Jade that finally shut Cat up. She promised her that when they arrive she'll make first person they see become Cat's date for the night. It was a terrible solution, but Tori didn't dare to interfere. She was too thankful for a temporary tranquility. Even if she didn't agree with Jade's methods she couldn't not notice that in her own psychotic way the Goth was trying to help. Her friendship with Cat wasn't the most conventional one. Sometimes Tori wondered how it was even possible for them to interact without Jade ripping Cat to pieces for being ridiculous most of the time, but the whole Robbie thing was clearly showing that she cared for Cat's wellbeing.

When they reached school most of their classmates had already arrived and started the party. Music was playing and people were walking around eating, talking and drinking. Few first couples moved onto the dance floor, shaking their bodies to energetic beat.

"Choose your date Cat and I'll make it happen. Let get it over with." Jade growled still irritated with the whole situation. Tori could only gulp and watch her closely. Maybe if she acted fast enough she could steal Jade's scissors before she'd press them to someone's throat. After all this time she still wasn't sure where Jade was hiding them, though there weren't many possibilities with her short black cowboy shirt and red skirt.

Luckily it didn't come to that, because Cat answered only with angry murmur, facing away from them. Tori quickly located what she was looking at. Pushing through the crowd, Robbie was walking towards them holding hands with a pretty brunette. They were both smiling and it looked like they were enjoying themselves.

"She's pretty" Cat stated lowly. Her voice more remained Tori more of Jade than redhead's bubbly personality.

"Nothing special. There are a lot girls like her, you definitely have more unique look." Tori tried to reassure her, but only Jade paid her any mind, Cat being too concentrated on the approaching couple.

"She is pretty." The Goth answered blankly. "Too pretty for Robbie though. Completely out of his league. I bet he bribed her or something. It's not gonna last."

"Is really a concept of someone truly liking Robbie that unbelievable for you?" Tori scolded her quietly. She was trying to help Cat and Robbie get together, but it didn't mean she was aiming for destroying his date and she wasn't going to let Jade do this too.

"He uses men makeup and wears Spongebob underwear." She didn't even try to be equally secretive and answered aloud just as Robbie stopped before them. He blinked twice, visibly embarrassed, while Gabriella raised her brews in silent question then froze a little when she noticed Cat's penetrating, furious glare.

Tori sighed deeply shifting her weight from foot to foot nervously. Jade was only smirking deviously and it looked like no one was going to do anything to resolve this situation. Before things could get even more awkward she stepped forward smiling friendly.

"Hi, guys! Nice to see you. How's your date? Are you having fun?"

"Umm, it's fine. The music is pretty good and the food is tasty, right?" Robbie beamed at his date, but it wasn't completely convincing while he kept stealing glances at Cat all the time.

"Yeah, you should go grab hot dogs. They're delicious." Gabriella said to Tori. Unlike Robbie she was trying to avoid looking at Cat at all cost and well… almost no one dared to make eye contact with Jade, no surprise here.

"We've already had two." Robbie laughed stiffly, while patting his belly anxiously. When Jade snorted at him with irritation he stopped immediately. "And how are you, girls?" he asked instead. Before Tori could answered him, Cat finally decided to join a conversation with a fake enthusiastic shout.

"Great! Even perfect. Having a lot of fun." Words were flowing from her mouths in chaos. "Jade and Tori are on a date and I'm just having a lot of fun here. Having such a great time by myself."

There was something terrifying about Cat's happiness, a little out of this world personality combined with a burning jealously and anger. This couldn't end well and Robbie probably sensed it.

"Ok, then we will get going and let all of you have fun here." He answered, backing down a little and dragging Gabriella with him, but the girl stopped him firmly.

"Wait, you two are on a date? Wow." There was clear shock on her face when she kept shifting her eyes from Tori to Jade and back, finally being able to look at the latter.

"Good point, Robbie. You should get going." The Goth sent him a hard glare, ignoring the question. The boy only gulped and this time dragged his date away without interruptions. They didn't even disappear from their view yet when Cat stomped off somewhere as well.

"Cat!" Tori tried to shout after her, but was totally ignored. "Should we go after her?" She turned toward Jade with uncertain expression.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Vega?" She crossed her arms with unbelieving look. "We just get out from one annoying situation and… fuck" she frowned, looking at something behind Tori's back. "Here comes another one."

The brunette turned around and before she even got a chance to ask what had happened she came face to face with Beck and Meredith. The girl was smiling sweetly at her, but the boy had an unreadable expression. Tori gulped involuntary.

Beck was still avoiding her on daily basic, but maybe this was his first step to making up. She wasn't sure if they were at odds with each other or if there was even a reason for them to be, so she didn't know how she was supposed to react. However she was already missing him after all these silent days. They had become closer after Jade and Beck's breakup. Andre was still her best friend, but Beck played an important part in her life too. She was desperate to fix their situation, so she smiled happily and greet them with enthusiasm.

"Hi there stranger! Good to see you after all this time. You've totally ditched us all for your new girl. She must be special." Tori joked while watching Meredith with curiosity. The girl immediately began laughing, but it was a little out of place considering the fact that Jade literally growled and Beck only frowned at her words.

"Yeah, I guess the same goes for you" He replied coldly, making Tori look at him with an honest confusion. She had got it pretty clearly that he didn't approve on her plan, but understanding why he was acting like she just stole his girlfriend or something was beyond her comprehension.

"Umm.." She stuttered. This was obviously not a place to remain him of the true reason why she was here with Jade. Or ask why he was making all of this so much harder.

"Hell yes!" Jade answered for her. Her tone was calm but warning. "Her date is special as fuck. She's here with the hottest girl in school after all." She wrapped Tori in a one arm half hug that was clearly more possessive than anything, but surprised the other girl nonetheless. Jade had never initiated something like that between them and the last time Tori tried to hug her, the Goth squeezed her so much that she had had a big black bruise for a few days.

Meredith began laughing again like if she just heard a great joke. It looked like she was completely oblivious to the fact that atmosphere around them was extremely tight and ready to explode at any second. Tori envied her that a little, because she was painfully aware of Beck's steely glare and Jade's stiff posture.

"This is Meredith." Beck pointed at still giggling girl after a minute, ignoring Jade's outburst. "I think you both have already met her." At this Meredith waved at them beaming and squeezing Beck's arm with her other hand.

"Yeah, some faces are hard to forget…" Jade murmured coldly with antipathy and even a little threat clear as a day in her voice.

"SO" Tori cut in before Jade could carry on with a topic. "How's your night going? Are you having fun?" It looked like it was going to become her number one question for this party. Who would have thought she would be making awkward small talks with her own friends.

"They've organized quite a great party." Beck answered with a neutral tone. Meredith quickly agreed with him.

"They did a good job."

"The food is ok." The boy continued blankly.

"It's delicious." Meredith added after him.

"The music is better than last year."

"This time they got fairly popular DJ."

"And the weather is nice. It was a little cold at the Full Moon Jam, but tonight is perfect."

"Not too cold, not to hot."

Okay, that was… weird. Tori blinked her eyes in confusion. She was so used to watching Beck following Jade obediently around all the time that seeing him with someone who just agreed with literally everything he said was a little disturbing. He had never appeared as someone who wanted to be the dominant one in a relationship and one look at him made Tori realize he wasn't comfortable with how things had turned out. She guessed this was why he hadn't been thrilled on Full Moon Jam either. But then why was he keeping this thing with Meredith going on?

"What the actual fuck?" Tori wasn't the only one surprised with what she'd just seen. Jade was looking with disbelief at her ex-boyfriend and beaming girl at his side. "Did you lose your mind, Beck? Just like your date clearly lost somewhere her personality?"

"She's just nice. It's hardly a flaw. I know someone who should learn it." Beck rolled his eyes with pure irritation.

They had been always arguing in the past, no matter if they were together at the moment or not. Somehow they managed to stay friends after the messy breakup, but everything that had happened lately proved that there were still many things unresolved between them. Had they truly moved on? The nagging thought was coming back to Tori like a boomerang all the time, making her even more worried if she'd done a right thing by getting involved.

"And I know someone who should shut up and go away." Jade's murderous glare was in full force. She still kept her arm around Tori and now her fingers were digging into brunette's flash firmly. Tori wasn't sure if it was another sign of possessiveness or just display of fury, but she could feel a bruise forming there.

"For examples us." She quickly freed herself from Jade's death grip and got a hold on her arm tugging her away. "Enjoy your date." She said as a goodbye to really uptight Beck and Meredith still smiling at him. That girl was even worse than Cat. She was looking at the Canadian boy like at some miracle out of this world and didn't acknowledge anything else. She completely tuned out the fact that Jade had offended and threatened her. In a way she was authentically special.

Tori was a little surprised when she didn't meet any kind of resistance on Jade's part when she dragged her away. Despise her fury, the Goth was more willing to just get out of the situation than make Meredith close acquaintance with her scissors. That was kind of a progress from her obsessive jealousy over Beck, so Tori decided to just let her go with all the crap she had just said. To be honest, she was too tired with this whole love drama around them to give a moral speech about being polite.

"I would never think I will say this one day, but from all our friends you're definitely the most bearable one." Jade stated ironically as they passed the dance floor and stepped close to tables with food. Tori didn't have any particular direction in mind, she just wanted to go away from Beck.

"I'm beginning to miss the times when none of us were dating" She turned to her own date with a weary sigh.

"Cat's not dating and I doubt if it's making her any good." Jade smirked widely, shrugging indifferently.

"It's not funny, Jade. She will drive us crazy if this situation progresses." Tori fixated her with a stern glare.

"It's not her fault, you're dumb enough to get involved." Jade rolled her eyes and added mimicking Tori's voice: "I'm goody-two-shoes that has to save a world and help everybody."

"I don't talk like that!" Tori crossed her arms with irritation, but there was small smile growing on her lips, when Jade began laughing. "Whatever. I still think we should check if everything's okay with her." She pressed on when the Goth finally stopped mocking her.

"Vega" Jade's voice became unexpectedly serious. "We are on a date. Are you forgetting that part? Should I remain you that I'm not really good with sharing? We're not spending this night running around after or away from our retarded friends. Am I making myself clear?" She wasn't angry or threatening yet, but Tori was sure she wouldn't take no for an answer.

"I guess you're right. I'm sorry. We have already had enough awkward situations for a life time." The brunette answered honestly, because indeed this was a date and Tori's distraction plan with taking Cat with them wasn't really fair. "So what do you wanna do?" She asked looking around for an empty table or at least somewhere to sit. Maybe they could talk some more? Last time it worked out quite good.

"Firstly, forget all those annoying things that just have happened. Come." It looked like Jade had a plan on her own, when she grabbed Tori's wrist and dragged her closer to food's tables. She poured herself a cup of punch, but stopped Tori when she tried to do the same. She began walking around looking at the punch's bowls whispering "not that" all the time. Finally she stopped by the last one with a satisfied smirked and poured another cup. She gave it to slightly suspicious Tori and drank her own with a loud. "Cheers!"

Tori carefully did the same and nearly choked on a burning liquid.

"God, it's like 50/50 vodka and punch. How've none of the teachers noticed it yet?" She coughed a little, completely not prepared to drink such a mix and frowned at her laughing companion. Jade grabbed her cup and took a little sip, before giving it back to Tori.

"Yeah, they got a little carried away this time." She answered cryptically.

"They? Who they? You know them? Please, don't tell me you did this." Tori watched her closely. She wouldn't be really surprised if Jade had been somehow involved in spiking the punch. She had never done anything like that with their group of friends, but their last game clearly proved that she knew a little about partying.

"You're flattering me right now, Vega." A smirk appeared on her lips while she went back to drinking from her own cup. "Are you thinking I could sneak around with a bottle of vodka, while spending all my time here with you, being dragged from one cheap, teenage love drama to another?"

"Point taken, but you keep sneaking around with at least one pair of scissors and still no one is sure yet where you're hiding them, so everything is possible." Tori crossed her arms and raised her chin in a challenge, but answered with a smile nonetheless. "And you ignored my other questions."

"It's not like you losers are the only people I know around here. God forbid, Robbie's being my only acquaintance." Jade rolled her eyes at her, but it was more playful than cruel… at least in comparison with Jade's normal behavior.

"Yeah? So why do you keep hanging out with us, losers then?"

"I'm asking myself this question every day."

"It has probably nothing to do with the fact that most of the people run away in panic whenever you enter a room."

"Like you are the one to talk…"

They kept bickering, rolling their eyes and sighing with exasperation. Dating or not, their day-to-day attitude toward each other didn't change that much. Tori wasn't even sure what kind of reaction she was trying to rise up from Jade, maybe some kind of acknowledge of their friendship, but they clearly weren't there yet, so she just gave up with a final sigh.

"Whatever. Why am I the only one drinking anyway?" She fixated her with another suspicious glare.

"Do you want Cat to drive us back?" Jade began laughing while refilling Tori's cup, ignoring her weak protest.

"Okay, but why do I have to drink if you can't?" She pressed on a little lost on a whole situation.

"To make you more fun for once" The Goth answered blankly like it was the most obvious thing.

"I could be fun!" Tori retorted offended. "You said yourself like a few moments ago that I'm the most bearable from all of our friends."

"It wasn't a compliment for you, it was an insult for them."

Once again Tori decided to just let it go. At least Jade wasn't trying to get her head rip off, so she shouldn't complain that she was snarky. It's not like she expected her to suddenly become nice, because they survived one ridiculously successful date together.

She contemplated what to do with her drink for few moments, considering just spilling its content back to the bowl. She didn't want to give into Jade's crazy wishes that easily, but after the second thought maybe she really needed that drink to endure the night. Trying not to choke again she sipped the punch carefully. She caught Jade smirking victoriously at her and couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes.

"Okay, so what now? Am I fun enough for you?" The brunette asked bluntly lying her cup down. She could already feel herself relax a little and actually was curious where the rest of this date will take them.

"We will see." Jade answered skeptically, but a smile was still visible on her face. "Do you have any funny ideas?"

"Umm… We can… dance?" She replied spontaneously, hearing the song she liked. It was safe suggestion, right? Good for a date and not really awkward. They were in the art's school after all. They had to dance together on plenty occasions, it was nothing new.

However before Jade could answer both of them spotted Robbie and Gabriella dancing in the middle of the dance floor. Not far away behind them was Cat, furiously red, looking more terrifying even than Jade West herself. Without a warning she threw away the hot dog she was eating, grabbed Sinjin who was passing by and dragged him mercilessly on a dance floor. Making sure that they were in front of Robbie she began dancing with completely startled school's biggest weirdo.

"And suddenly a possibility of Cat and Robbie's relationship is 99% less disgusting." Jade commented with a grimace. "I think I feel my lunch coming back."

"This is just ridiculous." Tori growled, dropping her arms in defeat. She had promised herself, Andre and kind of Jade that she would at least try to stay away from this, but when she saw Cat and Robbie's stealing glances at each other while dancing with other people she was more than ready to go there and put some sense into their heads. The only thing that stopped her was that there was absolutely no way to make Cat acting logical… and she was on a date. Jade made her thoughts pretty clear about the whole love drama thing.

"I think 'fucked up' is more fitting in this situation, but whatever. Dancing's out of questions right now. It's too dangerous out there." The Goth raised her brows slightly as they watched Sinjin's dancing or more like doing something that was supposed to be dancing. Actually it looked more like fighting the imaginary enemy with all the kicks and random waving hands in the air.

"Come on, let's find somewhere to sit." Tori sent her friends one last glance and decided to look for some more private area. Somewhere where she wouldn't have to suffer whatever Sinjin was doing right now and wasn't tempted to push Cat into Robbie. Jade followed her without any encouragement, probably sharing her feelings on the matter, but they didn't leave far before they quickly realized there was absolutely no chance for an empty table. Party was in a full blaze and people were crowding everywhere.

While Tori was thinking about the solution Jade as usual decided to do things her own way. Stomping like she was a walking army, not a teenage girl, she approached a table occupied by three boys that had been working with them on organizing Full Moon Jam two weeks ago. Before the girl even got a chance to speak all of them went completely pale and one even began trembling a little.

"Don't you have somewhere else to be?" Jade hissed threateningly.

Their answers were too quiet and too quick for Tori to caught while they literally ran away nearly bumping into each other in a distress.

"Ugh…" Jade snorted with disdain, making herself comfortable on a nearest chair. "At least they didn't piss their pants this time."

"Jade! You can't just…" Tori pointed around them with disbelieve and irritation. Right words lost on her.

"Yes, I can. I just did." The Goth shrugged indifferently.

"No, you can't make people run away in panic. It's sick and crazy… even for you." Despite her attitude, Tori kept her ground firmly, alcohol obviously making her more blunt and stubborn.

"It's practical. Just sit down and enjoy it." Another shrug followed by an eyes' roll.

"No. This is just… evil. I won't accept that. You should… apologize to them." Yeah, alcohol definitely was making her blunt. She kept hovering above Jade with crossed arms and serious expression. All fears about being cut with a scissors long forgotten.

"Apologize? Them? Me? Are you hearing yourself?" Jade was more surprise than anything else, but irritation was slowly appearing on her face. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm ridiculous?" Tori pointed at herself with disbelief. "You've just made three guys bigger than you stumble on their foot while getting away from us."

"I would say it's impressive and sexy" typical Jade's smirk pop up on her lips.

"I would say it's a little anti-climatic when you're threatening others people's lives during a date."

"It's anti-climatic when you're trying to save a world and get other couples together during a date."

At this point they were sending each other murderous glares. Tori had to take deep breath before responding in order to not rising her voice.

"Ok, you're right, but I let it be and actually try to not get involved. You can try too. Stop being a walking definition of a nightmare."

"No." Jade answer was short and stubborn, exactly the same as when they had been arguing in a shop. Her cold expression suggested she was angry with Tori and just messing with her for a sake of that. Maybe the whole Cat's situation had really upset her? But Tori was too infuriated herself to care.

"No? So why should I care then? You asked me out, you should try to make it work too."

"No, you asked me out." Jade's eyes was burning with fury, but there was something else too. This strange something that always appeared in those intense situation between them. Anxiety? Doubt? Like Jade wasn't sure what to do. "For fuck sake, Vega. Alcohol was supposed to make you entertaining for once, not obstinate. Just sit down."

"No. You wanted me to fight back? So I'm making a riot here." She really wasn't sure where all of this was coming from. Maybe she really lost all of her common sense, but whatever was happening between her and Jade, she couldn't keep tip-toeing around ALL the issues. Of course that issue was like the smallest of them all, but Tori really needed to gain some control over her current relationship with Jade.

"Sit. Down. Vega." Jade clearly wasn't having anything of that. She grabbed her arm abruptly and pulled her toward nearest chair. However she completely miss-calculated her own strength and Tori's clumsiness doubled by alcohol. The brunette missed the chair entirely and just ended on Jade's laps, her forehead hitting the Goth's.

The atmosphere took a 180 degree turn in that moment from heated argument to pure awkwardness. Both girls straightened swiftly and froze. Tori's brain went into it's typical overdrive while the brunette was trying really hard to not just ran away from all of this like those guys earlier. On the contrary her eyes just went straight to Jade's lips that were REALLY close to her own now and remained her that they were supposed to kiss again at some point on this date. That made her somehow freak out even more and as a result stare more intensively. And THAT was without question the worst possible signal to send because there was absolutely no way Jade wouldn't notice and even Tori in her clouded-mind state knew what it suggests to stare at someone's lips.

Before this messy situation could get any messier the loud crash interrupted them. Tori literally flew out of Jade's laps nearly bumming into the other chair. The Goth raised to her feet too, just like half of the other party-goers. Everyone stared at Cat – laying flat on the dance floor, knocked out by one of Sinjin's crazy moves.

"Should we…?" Tori watched the scene unfolded before her eyes with uncertainty. Her instinct told her to intervene, but she didn't want to bring back her argument with Jade again. On the other hand the Goth looked quite concerned herself. At least for a second, before she covered it with irritation and then a little smirk.

"I think Robbie got it covered." She replied while they observed their friend quickly taking care of Cat, completely forgetting about his date.

"Yeah, we better not disturb them." Full mouth smile appeared on Tori's face. It looked like at least one problem began to solve itself. Robbie helped Cat out of the dance floor and Gabriella found herself quite happy being left with Sinjin. They started talking, smiling contently at each other.

"Maybe it's a bet or something. She has to get the worst date possible for this dance." Jade murmured quietly, her voice full of repulsion.

"Or maybe she just… Ouch, who am I kidding? There is really no logical explanation to that." Tori just chuckled, pleased with a turn of event. She smiled lightly at Jade, their arguing long forgotten. But when she got a smile in return their strange moment during lap sitting returned to her immediately. The Goth had to remembered it too, because she raised her brow at her quizzically, fixating her with cautious glare.

Of course Tori did the only thing she used to do lately in those kind of situation: escape it quickly with a magic of avoidance, dismissive and subject's changing.

"The dance floor it safe again. Come on. We can finally dance." They have been already standing so Tori just turned around and moved towards the dancing couples. With a corner of an eye she caught Jade's sending her one of those unreadable looks before she joined her.

"Let show those amateurs how you really do this, shall we?" She smirked viciously, making few closest couple move away from them slightly. Tori just rolled her eyes at that, but didn't comment in any way, letting the music guide her.

Thankfully she had been right. Dancing was really a great idea. She and Jade easily fall into sync together, moving around each other like they had been doing this for years. In a way they had, but this time was different. Without a choreography or a teacher forcing them into working together. They weren't singers or actors in that moment. Just them – two teenage girls that were supposed to hate each other but by some inexplicable miracle managed to gravitate closer and closer with every song. It didn't feel embarrassing when they chuckled after accidently bumping into other couple. It didn't feel forced when they took a short break to catch their breath and drink something. It didn't feel awkward when their hands touched each other hips or arms or necks during dancing. Maybe it was alcohol but all this just felt so normal and right that Tori managed to forget why she was here with Jade in a first place and about all of her insecurities. She forgot about it enough to completely lose a track of time and be surprised when the music stopped.

"Weren't you supposed to sing tonight or something?" Jade smirked at her with eyes shining with mischief.

"O my God, I totally…" Tori cut herself in a middle of the sentence. Yeah, she totally forgot. Andre was literally her Distraction Plan B. If the date had turned out crappy and even Cat's presence couldn't help with awkwardness, she would have just excused herself to find Andre and help him to prepare a performance. But somehow instead she was still down there, dancing with Jade, quickly becoming late for her own show, while Andre, up on the stage, was plugging in the equipment frankly looking around, probably searching for her.

Jade chuckled at her mortified expression. It was one of those rare laughs that were just sincere, lacking of any kind of mocking. The one that Tori had never anticipated hearing, but was becoming quite accustomed to during last few weeks.

"Of course. I have to wait for months to get a chance to sing something, while you have so many performances that you can forget about one." She rolled her eyes after a moment, but then just pushed Tori playfully toward the stage. "What are you waiting for? Get your ass up there. I guess there are people actually waiting to hear your crappy music."

Tori watched her with conflicted emotions, still once again completely taken-aback by the whole situation. She should be getting to Andre as fast as she can, but somehow she was still stuck in a place thinking about Jade. Like she didn't even consider earlier if it's ok to just leave your date in a middle of a night. Or she had never really thought that hard about how many more times she was the school main star instead of anybody else. It was kind of surprise to her, but in that moment she just felt bad not only for abandoning Jade, but also for being the one to sing, while her companion was constantly getting rejected, despite also having a beautiful voice.

"Umm… Are you going to be ok back here?" She asked uncertain. She knew there was nothing she could do – it's not like she could ignore her own performance – but she felt the need to show some kind of support to the girl. Of course it was a tricky task, because Jade would probably rip her head off for any sign of pity. She had made herself pretty clear about that.

Jade looked at her with curiosity, but then just shrugged indifferently.

"A break from you will probably do me good." She smirked slightly. "And if I get bored I can always just entertain myself with bullying Sinjin's friends again." She joked then pushed Tori again. "Just go, Vega. We've dealt with our angry friends enough for a lifetime today. We don't need Andre storming here to find you."

"Ok." Still uncertain Tori took few steps toward the stage before looking at Jade for the last time with a truly sincere smile. "See you in a bit."


	7. Five seconds for freaking out

**AN:** I'm really, really sorry for a delay. This time it was completely unplanned. Just... Maybe some of you watched the 100? If no, you're lucky, if yes, you know what happened there. I just had to get rid of too many feels and write something for that in my free time. But once again: I'm not abounding this story, the next chapter will be sooner for real.

* * *

When she finally made it onto the stage, Andre greeted her with a disapproving look.

"Having fun?" He asked stiffly.

"Okay, what's with that attitude?" Tori tried to calm him, but it definitely wasn't working. "It's nice that you finally stopped with insinuating I'm going out with a wrong girl or have been brainwashed by aliens, but smile wouldn't kill you."

"I saw you and Jade. It's confirmed to be true, so now I can concentrate on worrying instead of being surprised." He sighed deeply, scanning her with his eyes sceptically. "Can you even envision any scenario where all of this doesn't end with your death? And potentially mine too?"

"Hey, I've survived that far, have a little faith."

"Faith is useful when you're stuck under the avalanche or something. We're talking Jade West here. She would push you down the stairs without any reason and now you're giving her a pretty good one." He shook his head and pushed microphone into her hand, still preparing everything for their oncoming performance. "And we also establish that she will be totally excused while doing this. You were supposed to resolve this situation not take over the dancefloor with her."

"How many times do I have to tell you that I know?" Tori groaned tiredly, while brushing her hair and fixing her outfit. "I can't exactly call it all off in the middle of the date."

"Yeah, it's better to say it at the end. 'It was the best date of my life and everything was perfect, but we should never ever go out together again. Bye'" Tori was slowly getting used to all the critical glances her best friend was sending her way. She completely understood his point, but it was easy to say when he wasn't the one stuck in this mess.

"On the bright side, it looks like Cat and Robbie are working things out finally." She changed the topic, because it really wasn't the place to discuss her situation with Jade in more details, considering all the people preparing the stage around them. "I didn't even have to interfere." She joked to make the atmosphere a little less grim.

"After all this mess you created with Beck and Jade, I guess Cat and Robbie are working it out BECAUSE you didn't interfere." Andre shut her down mercilessly.

"That was just mean." Tori crossed her on her chest, but they didn't get a chance to continue with their bickering. One of the teachers waved at them to finally start the performance. After a little more rushed preparation Tori got in front of the crowd and began singing Andre's newest hit. Smile returned on both their faces just as the music started and at least for the moment all of the troubles went away... Almost.

Tori wasn't sure why or how, but somewhere in the middle of the song she spotted Jade in the crowd, clapping and jumping with the rest. Despite her declared hatred toward Tori's music she was clearly enjoying herself. That subconsciously made the brunette smile even more. The energy was flowing through her while she sang and danced passionately.

When the song ended there was even more clapping and shouting, but Tori's eyes were stuck on Jade, the sense of pride filling her. She hugged Andre happily in a silent 'thank you' for writing another good song and he returned it just as enthusiastically, the music finally relaxing him.

But it didn't last long, when they were in the middle of unplugging the equipment Jade appeared next to them.

"Great song." She greeted them with a smirk. "Andre." She added while raising a brow at Tori in the challenge. The brunette only answered her with the roll of her eyes.

"Thanks" The young musician replied, but his heart wasn't in it. "I have to go. Have fun during the rest of your day." He sent Tori a pointed look and basically run away before anyone could stop him.

"Okay, that was weird. Even for tonight's standards." Jade followed him with her eyes, clearly confused.

"I think you're used to people running away from you." Tori joked noncommittal, but again her poor attempt at avoidance wasn't working.

"Not like that. He didn't even have a reason." Jade looked at her suspiciously. "You two aren't spending so much time together lately." She observed flatly. There was no point in denying so Tori just sighed with resignation.

"We're having different opinions on one thing." She explained awkwardly. "Actually the same opinion, but Andre's expectations are a little bit unreal." She added, subconsciously running away with her eyes.

"There you go Vega, back at completely not making sense again." Jade rolled her eyes at her, but her expression was actually quite open. "That explained literally nothing."

"Why exactly do you care?" Tori snapped unintentionally, stressed with the topic and all that situation in general. She quickly regretted it, when she saw Jade crossing her arms and immediately closing off. After so much time she finally got Jade West to treat her at least not like her greatest enemy and she was totally messing it up nearly every time. Perfect.

"I don't." The Goth snorted at her. "Just our friend group is fucked up enough already without another pointless drama."

Tori bit her lips, feeling guilty after treating the other girl like that. She wanted to apologize somehow, but before she even got a chance, Beck appeared backstage, walking towards them with a cup in his hand.

"Great performance, Tori. As always." He smiled at her, making her scan him suspiciously with her eyes. Wasn't he avoiding her? Wasn't he angry at her? What was he doing here and where did he lost his date?

"Umm... Thanks, Beck." Her smile was a little stiff, but she made an effort to look approachable.

"Want a drink? You probably could use a one after all this singing." He tried to give her a cup, but Jade quickly pushed his hand away, nearly spilling the drink.

"What the hell are you doing here? Don't you have an idiot to look after somewhere else?" She growled dangerously, making even Tori shook a little at that.

"She's perfectly fine. Thanks for your concern." Beck just rolled his eyes at her ex-girlfriend, generally ignoring her outburst. "I just came to congratulate Tori and maybe offer her a drink." He shrugged innocently.

"Thank you, Beck. That's really not necessary..." Tori tried to pacified the situation, but whatever Beck true motivation for coming over was, it clearly included pissing off Jade. He was doing perfect job at saying everything wrong.

"Maybe you should make sure of taking care of your date and offering drinks to her." Jade literally looked like a predator few seconds away from ripping his prey to pieces. "She looks like someone to get lost in her own house and you just left her somewhere?"

"Can you blame me from wanting to check up on you, guys?" Another shrug. This time he moved his eyes toward Tori. "I have to admit I'm deeply surprised you haven't killed each other yet. Opposites attract each other after all I guess."

Its definitely wasn't the smartest thing Tori ever did, but sensing upcoming violence she placed herself strategically between Beck and Jade. Apparently Beck was also aiming for messing up with her, for whatever reason he had, but unlike Jade, the brunette really wished to survived the night without any scandal.

"We're doing pretty well, thanks for your concern and drink." She quickly took the cup still lingering between them. "We can discuss it all later, but for now we won't keep you from Meredith any longer." She stressed her last sentence and walked away hoping deeply that Jade would just follow her. She heard her mumbling something similar to "fuck off", but thankfully, the Goth quickly joined her. She pulled the cup out off Tori's grip quickly and threw it angrily into nearest bin, spilling a little bit of punch around.

"Have anything to add?" She hissed at Tori warningly and once again crossed her arms defensively.

"Just sorry about earlier." The girl answered honestly, just letting everything else go. "I didn't mean to snap at you about Andre. All of this is just stressing me up." She tried to be as sincere as possible.

"Maybe if you didn't take the whole world upon your shoulders, you wouldn't feel like it's going to crush you. Trying to help everybody has its downsides." Jade sighed at her, but it wasn't sarcastic or anything. She shrugged awkwardly before adding, "Need any help with anything? I can kick some sense into Andre... or you, depends who's at fault." She tried to cover up her unusual softness with a smirk, but it still sounded so un-Jade.

"No, no... That's okay." Tori assured her quickly. "Thank you for your offer anyway. I will make sure to find you, if I need to kick anything into anyone." She joked clumsily. For few seconds they looked at each other unsure.

"Oh, you won't have to look for long, I'm usually where the kicking happens." Jade smirked, leaning on the school's wall. They left the stage and the party behind them and accidently found themselves behind the school's building.

"You're usually the reason why the kicking happens." Both of them began laughing good-naturally at that.

"Okay, I have to admit that tonight's song may not be your worst one." Jade added after the moment, looking untypically hesitant.

"Jade... I want you to know that I'm generally sorry about your cancelled performance last time. Maybe you can work with Andre on something for another school party. Do something different than my another cheesy song." Tori couldn't stop herself from proposing. She really was bothered about the whole situation and still wasn't sure why. She knew there was a big chance that saying something like that would earn her a murderous glare and brutal shove, but instead she got only a single nod.

"Maybe I will keep your word on that." With this final statement they were left in silence, staring at each other. It wasn't awkward or anything, actually Tori felt surprisingly content. She heard the warning bells in the back of her mind that made her realize it looked like Jade and her were having some kind of the intimate moment and who knows where it could lead, but she ignored it. It didn't even really matter anyway because once again Cat broke their intensive staring.

Shouting and looking like a crazy person, the redhead rode past them on a pink bicycle, babbling about some kiss. Where had she got the ridiculous bike in the middle of the party was a complete mystery, but it was far from important, considering everything else.

"CAT?!" Tori followed the girl with her eyes, concerns for her wellbeing filling her at once.

"This is slowly becoming predictable." Jade raised her eyes to the sky in response, sighing tragically.

"What happened?" The brunette asked no one in particular, beginning to go after the disappearing girl.

"Something we don't want to get involved into?" She heard the murmured respond, but loud stomping of Jade's boots follow her anyway.

"Jade, she really looks troubled." They used the back entrance to run through school, trying to get ahead of Cat to the front.

"That's Cat. She expresses every emotion double as much as a normal person." The Goth huffed at her. "Let her be. She has that bike now, she doesn't even need us to drive her back."

"We're not leaving her to ride through a city on a stolen bike." Tori finally turned around to send her a stubborn look that didn't really leave place for discussion. They made it to the main entrance so she slowed down a little. "Also probably something happened with Robbie. Maybe she needs a friend to talk about it."

"For fuck sake Vega. Do you always have to play a matchmaker to everyone?" Jade's exasperated remark made Tori stop abruptly. It was the same name Andre called her recently and hearing Jade using it accidently made her panic a little. The other girl, following her closely, clearly wasn't prepared for that and walked straight into her, pushing her forward. They stood at the top of the stairs leading to school, so Tori lost her footing and before she could manage to do anything she started falling down. Two hands grabbed her waist quickly and pulled her back.

"As clumsy as ever." Jade snorted, tightening her gripped on Tori. "What just happened here? Are you ok?"

Tori slowly turned around coming face to face with other girl that was still holding her in a half embrace.

"I'm sorry." She stuttered, instantly noticing how close they stood. She could smell Jade, feel the warmth of her hands and it was messing with her head again. "I was just..." She swallowed unsure of what she's trying to say, what she's supposed to say.

"Being you?" A little smirk appeared at Jade's face, as her bluish eyes were scanning Tori's face like she was looking for something.

"Thanks for catching me up. Instead of pushing me down, for once." Tori cringed at nervousness she heard in her own voice and messy sentence that left her lips without her consent.

"I did push you down, for the record." Jade whispered, her voice was becoming softer and smoother with every word to the point that Tori doubted she had ever heard other girl talking like that. "But we don't need you getting another scar so soon." She raised her hand and slowly traced her fingers about little pink mark that still was visible on Tori's face after falling out the windows two weeks ago. At this point Tori's brain basically stopped working and her breath involuntary hitched. She had never even suspected that Jade West could be this delicate with somebody not mention her. What just... Why... How?

She saw Jade's eyes falling slowly to her lips and then moving back up. They were still so close to each other. She could see the greenish spots in Jade's eyes, a little, barely noticeable move of her tongue when she wetted her lips... Those lips...

"Vega." She had anticipated that Jade's voice would break a strange spell that fall upon them, but it pulled her in even more. "You have five seconds to freak out if you need to. After that time I'm going to kiss you. If you get an emotional breakdown then, I promise I WILL push you down this stairs."

That was her cue to finally do something, to stop this madness, but she was far past rational thinking at this point... Or any thinking to be honest. She watched with incredulity as Jade West that was supposed to hate her guts, scanned her face cautiously once again before connecting their lips. This time Tori seriously managed not to freak out and kissed back like she was preparing herself to it for the last few days. What she hadn't prepared herself for was for that kiss to feel so... good. She hadn't get a chance to really experience this the first time when she hadn't even reciprocated, just pushed Jade back. Now it was... Wow. Hands down, Jade West was a good kisser.

Tori had her amount of lip-locking on scene or in real life. Some of them were sloppy, some uncoordinated, some just simply gross. One guy had behaved like he had been trying to bite her lips off, the other one nearly had choked her with his tongue. So (from completely professional point of view) Tori could really appreciate this kiss. It was surprisingly gentle and soft. Something she wasn't expecting from Jade. Her lips moved slowly against her own in full synchronization. The Goth caught her lower lip into her owns and sucked on it, making Tori's insides twist involuntary. The girl put her hands on Jade's neck, subconsciously pulling her closer. She wondered if the other girl really was such a good kisser or maybe this was normal for all of girls. Now she was getting curious.

The thought about stopping a kiss that just kept going on and on, didn't even cross her mind. Time seemed to freeze around them as they moved their lips tentatively, tightened their grips on each other and slowly stepped closer. One more time reality hit them hard in form of the shouting redhead.

Tori jumped back like something burnt her, forgetting about stairs and losing her footing again. Jade immediately pulled her back in, fully fusing their bodies together and sneaking her arms around her in full embrace. Tori's face ended up pushed into her neck and surrounded by dark waves. She breathed in sharply, inhaling even more of fresh smell of Jade that made her head spin.

"I can't believe this shit." She heard Jade mumbling under her breath, but they were close enough for Tori to hear it. The brunette raised her head, quickly, but this time carefully, detaching herself from surprisingly inviting warm and safety of Jade's hug.

"Cat!" She shouted after a girl that just passed them on pink bike and didn't even care to stop and acknowledge them. Tori stole one glance at Jade that seemed pissed beyond belief at this point, but sudden realization of what just happened between the two of them was just an added encouragement to concentrate on Cat for a moment. It's not like she's deflecting again it's just... Yeah, whatever, she's totally deflecting because... just wow. Were they stuck in some kind of alternative universe or something? None of this should have ever happened. None of this should have been able to happen.

"Cat!" She repeated blankly, but her mind or heart wasn't really in it, despite trying. Putting extra effort in not falling down the stairs for the third time, she ran after the redhead, hoping that she hadn't just created even more mess out of everything.

* * *

"And then he kissed me! Can you imagine that?!" Cat was literally jumping up and down on a backseat, gripping tightly their seat headrests.

"I'm really trying not to." Jade snorted, keeping her eyes angrily on a road and once again holding a staring wheel that hard that Tori was seriously worried it's about to break in half.

"You two were having a moment so..." She tried to reason with Cat, ignoring the fuming girl next to her.

"Robbie kissed me!" Redhead repeated like it was an answer to everything.

"Yes, Cat. We got it the first fifty times." Jade released another even more frightening growl.

"But didn't you want him to? You spent the whole night trying to gain his attention." This was really completely pointless, but they had another two crossroads to pass before they could get to Tori's, so she tried to establish with Cat what exactly had happened with her and Robbie.

"Because he was paying it to Gabriella instead!" Even now, the girl spitted that name hatefully. "It made me angry and sad." She added quietly, clearly unsure of herself. It was first quite coherent thing that left her mouth, so Tori stuck to that.

"You need to make up your mind Cat." She repeated for millionth time. "I understand that it can be hard and confusing, but you're not helping yourself with running away. You have to talk to Robbie about this." She stressed pointedly the last sentence.

"I can't, I just..." The redhead lost all her energy, falling on the backseat. She crossed her arms and looked outside the car window, muttering something to herself under her breath.

"Thanks God, finally." Jade said quietly, that only Tori could hear her and the girl couldn't agree with her more. She cared for Cat deeply, but their friend, just turned their life into a nightmare during the last half an hour. Getting her off the bike, trying to figure out to who it belonged and returning it, while calming down Cat hadn't been something Tori would ever want to repeat. Of course doing it with angry Jade as a companion had been additional downside, but Tori had been pleasantly surprised how they had managed to procced normally after that kiss. At this point she wasn't even sure if that normalcy was something good or bad. She lost the rest of control of situation and wasn't getting anywhere near to reclaiming it back.

They made it into Tori's driveway without any additional incidents or disturbance and Jade parked her car.

"You're going to be okay back there Cat?" She turned around from the front seat towards the redhead, preferring to say goodbye to her first.

"Yeah, don't need to worry Tori. What about you? You two probably want to kiss goodbye." Her enthusiasm was back in full force, when she began jumping up and down, while clapping her hands. "Go ahead. Don't mind me. I'm not looking." She covered her eyes with her hands, smiling like a crazy person and still jumping.

Tori looked at her in complete panic, then switching her eyes toward Jade that kept on staring angrily ahead and murdering the steering wheel. Okay, their kiss wasn't bad. Actually Tori had admitted it since the beginning that it was pretty good, but she definitely wasn't ready for another one. The first had messed with her head enough and she needed time to proceed. But she had to say goodbye to Jade somehow.

Going with the first idea that appeared in her mind (when she would finally learn to stop doing that? She could see Andre's rolling his eyes even from here), she decided to act before Jade snapped out of her anger and began to participate in conversation. She leaned toward her and kissed her cheek lightly. It was safe. It was normal. It was great for a date that wasn't supposed to happen.

"Thank you for the lovely evening." She whispered sincerely, hoping at the same time that it didn't sound like a suggestion for another date. Her eyes were probably playing a trick on her, but she could swear she saw Jade's blushing for a second, before she lowered her head and her hair covered her face. She didn't get a chance to reply, because Cat basically exploded.

"THAT WAS SO CUTE!" She squealed, making Tori cringe and finally pushing Jade over the edge.

"CAT!" The Goth turned around sharply. "Can you please check if the shovel is still somewhere back there?" She whispered dangerously.

"Yeah, sure." Cat shrugged, looking around. The obvious treat completely lost on her, but not on Tori.

"Jade..." She said slowly.

"Don't worry Tori, I will take care of Cat."

"This is exactly what I'm worrying about." She sighed deeply at the fire burning in the other girl's eyes. "Just drive her home."

"Oh... Maybe we will do a little detour." Jade hissed.

"Detour?" Cat caught her last word with happiness that wasn't in anyway adequate to the topic of conversation. "We can do a sleepover at your place! We can get food and discuss relationship stuffs. Talk about you and Tori..."

"CAT!" Jade stopped her with scream that made Tori shiver a little. "Can you please check if the shovel doesn't get rusty and can still be used?"

At this point Tori decided that the best thing she can do was just leave that heating conversation.

"Cat, please call me when Jade gets you home." She said towards her friend, sent Jade another warning glare and finally got out of the car. She was about to make her way towards the front door, but the shout stopped her in her track.

"Vega!" Jade leaned over the lowered window. She didn't look that angry anymore. There was a smirk at her lips, but her eyes were avoiding Tori awkwardly. "It was a terrible evening, but you... weren't the worst part of it." With that Jade-like complement she drove away, leaving Tori with a big mess in her head.


End file.
